Members of the House of Lords have recently criticised the government’s decision to exclude creative subjects from the English Baccalaureate taught in mainstream schools, additionally claiming that an EBacc without the arts should be unthinkable. This news will be welcome amongst the arts community who have supported the inclusion and importance of arts in schools, providing children with a balanced education and the chance to pursue a career in any direction.
The lack of mandatory creative subjects in the EBacc has ignited concerns regarding the effects a curriculum without compulsory arts subjects, and how that could affect the education and influence on young people. Artist and crossbench peer Nicholas Trench maintained that a core curriculum without the arts will not raise standards of young people in schools, denying them the chance to flourish within the arts and be rewarded by them, the same way a student focuses on maths is rewarded by success in that subject.
Plans for the EBacc, which the government has said it hopes will be used by 90% of secondary school pupils, requires GCSE students to study English, maths, science, a language and either history or geography, with no focus on the arts subjects of any kind. Whilst many think the EBacc should either be reformed or dropped entirely, to others it is just unthinkable as to why an EBacc with no cultural component was being encouraged by the government.
It is clear the English Baccalaureate is not a broad and balanced curriculum; schools minister Nick Gibb previously and illogically claimed that concerns over the lack of arts subjects in the EBacc were unjustified, as it allowed pupils to participate in creative subjects outside the formal curriculum. Without the support of arts from schools, the subjects will simply decline. Recent figures from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport showed that the UK’s creative industries are now worth £84.1 billion per year to the economy, something the government might miss if it dwindled.