I’m sure you’ve experienced walking out of the cafeteria at school, looking down at your misshapen timetable and sighing with relief. Maybe you even ran to your friends, desperate to share the good news. Drama was next. Basically a free period. Or maybe you started picking your nails as cheers erupted outside the drama studio. The giddiness begins, the shouting follows. And, yet another student crosses ‘actor’ off the list.
It’s no rarity for the theatre kids to be uncool. We grew up watching them get slushies thrown at their faces. Or saw those talented at music be overruled by a class who praises the electronic keyboard. For too long society has treated ‘the arts’ like spare subjects to fill the timetable.
Well now they’re getting rid of them.
Since 2010 there has been an overall decline of almost 50% in the number of arts GCSE entries. Some schools don’t offer any arts subjects at GCSE anymore.
‘The arts’ includes subjects like music, drama, dance, art, design and technology, media and film studies.
42% of schools no longer enter students for GCSE music, 41% don’t enter any students for drama GCSE, 84% enter no students for dance GCSE. And some only offer arts subjects at GCSE but not A levels, which disincentives students from choosing them.
Sally Bacon and Derri Burdon, co-chairs of the Cultural Learning alliance, who introduced the report, said, “The decline has been driven primarily by a government focus on a narrow range of subject areas and therefore a systematic downgrading or exclusion of arts subjects and experiences. Despite all that is known about the value of arts subjects for children and young people, there has been a lack of value ascribed to the arts within the state education system in England”.
At the heart of this problem lies the dismissive attitude that society has fostered towards creative arts industries for some time, which is now seeping into schools and curriculums. By placing artistic subjects on the back burner, it sends the message that they simply aren’t important. At such an age when career plans seem prominent and life-changing, if the arts are being disregarded by school and society, they will too be disregarded by teenagers desperate to succeed.
The hypocrisy in this decision is that we consume the arts every day. They border our walls and brighten up our homes, they are the subjects we bring up when the conversation turns dry, they fill a mundane work-day with entertainment. In the commercial world, we use them to promote or advertise because the arts grab our attention.
‘The arts’ are called in to get people to look up and feel, to relate and realise things about themselves.
These things matter. It matters in the way we cultivate connections, think differently and measure our joy.
The narrative starts at pre-GCSE years when these subjects aren’t taught to their full potential, so students don’t take them seriously. There is no set curriculum or pressure placed on learning the technical skills required to succeed in the arts. Whilst failing at maths or science has consequences, there are none for creative subjects at lower levels. Students can afford to not try and therefore don’t pay attention, which has a domino effect on their subject choices.
Whilst some children can explore the arts through extracurricular clubs, those who cannot access or afford them depend heavily on the education system to hone their talents. While 33% of the population has a working-class background, only 16% of British actors are working class. Restricting access in schools kills the diversity within creative industries because only those from a privileged background can be trained enough to go after a professional career.
Each class contains a child with interests that dim when every group performance is turned into a joke by peers. Prospects are trodden on every time an artist cannot reach their full potential. Prioritisation of non-arts subjects has led to a lack of resources, teacher recruitment and training in arts subjects. But pupils with creative talents are left behind. The importance of studying the arts isn’t to make everyone amazing at them, but to respect them, so we all receive pride in our achievements.
Society has often placed more value on logical thinking; the ability to fix one problem with one solution. Arts education practises divergent thinking, which is finding multiple answers to wider problems. However, because art is subjective, it is harder to assess, so creativity in the classroom becomes limited. The solution shouldn’t be to scrap them, but to change the way our Education System operates. Now-days, the intense pressure to get good grades rules above the priority of actually learning and young minds shut off at anything that won’t be in an exam. The national curriculum is supposed to teach the essential knowledge children need to become educated citizens. And yet, in a craze to get students to pass, schools are sacrificing the quality of their education.
We are entering an era where employers are seeking innovative skills, such as collaboration, critical thinking, adaptability and creative problem solving, more than ever. A recent Statista study showed more than 70% of companies surveyed believe creative and analytical skills will be the most important by 2027. Without the arts, we risk sending emerging adults unprepared into workforces screaming for creativity.
The arts have the power to bring about social change by educating people on issues in a captivating way. They inspire us by painting solutions we can picture better than through a statistic. A strong arts culture not only creates artists, but improves our health, empathy and overall quality of life.
By negating the importance of the arts, we are preparing future generations for a world that will function expertly, but be void of inspiration and joy. It is vital we teach students to respect creative industries, because one day they will either be a part of, or in charge of them.