Squeeze on arts education puts generation at risk
Thursday, 10 April 2025
Dr Kerryn Palmer is an arts educator, freelance theatre director, producer and arts advocate.
OPINION: In 2024 the Government declared that arts in education are “nice to haves”. They did so while announcing new mandates of structured literacy and numeracy and delaying (again) a refresh of the arts curriculum. This was followed by further cuts to school arts programmes and the closure of several leading performing arts companies that create work for and with young people. In 2025 performing arts companies are reporting a drop in engagement with schools because they are squeezed for time as they grapple with the changes in the curriculum.
As the Government squeezes space for arts within education and in professional and community spaces, there is a serious risk that a generation of New Zealand children will miss out on experiencing and learning through the arts. At the risk of sounding like a middle-aged wokester, this lack of arts-rich experiences for young people could detrimentally affect the fabric of New Zealand society.
In 1935, the first Labour government’s prime minister, Peter Fraser, and education minister Clarence Beeby, were inspired by John Dewey’s theories of education, democracy and the arts. Dewey believed that art has a way of encouraging people to understand and empathise with the environment and crucially that art is a tool to “erase bias” and encourage “democratic citizenship”.
Embracing Dewey's theory of inquiry-based education as a pathway to democracy, Beeby pioneered a New Zealand education system that held the arts at the centre, one that encouraged a way of thinking about possibilities for a more just, equitable and fairer world. This was a revolutionary movement, and seeded pathways for many of our great artists and thinkers. It came at a time of rising fascism and was implemented ‒ among others ‒ by visionary artist and educationalist Gordon Tovey, who formulated innovative education programmes that integrated art, drama, music and movement into the curriculum.
Art helps young people to dream big, work with others, solve problems, collaborate, create, make choices, feel uplifted and empowered. An education system that is obsessed with structured numeracy and literacy and going “back to basics” (what does that even mean?) ignores the fact that the arts, can be a conduit that children can learn these basics through. One that also provides essential life skills such as communication, confidence, teamwork, problem-solving skills and creativity.
Even if this Government fails to understand the value of an arts-rich education, or appreciate the world-leading arts education programme we once had, there are things you can do to ensure that this generation of children has access to and can experience the arts:
Investigate performing arts and visual arts after-school programmes for children
Encourage your school to fill their programme with arts-rich activities and their playground with art
Read the research that states how in arts-rich schools children do better in numeracy and literacy and that young people who have access to the arts are generally happier and healthier
Sign the Bring Back Creatives in Schools petition on Action Station, which calls for the Government to reinstate this art-rich programme
Watch Luit and Jan Bieringa’s 2016 documentary The Heart of the Matter about the Tovey movement
Take your children to the theatre, the opera, the ballet, discover free arts events
The world may well feel chaotic but exposure to the arts at a young age can have a fundamentally positive effect on young people and can teach them ways to challenge the status quo and lead the world in a more empathetic and creative way.
Sources: Te Ara, Peter O’Connor, Te Rito Toi and The debasement of art in schools (Mark Amery in The Spinoff.)