Are we telling young people the arts don’t matter?

Wednesday, 24 September 2025

Art history will no longer be a subject in New Zealand schools.

André Chumko is chief arts correspondent at The Post and the Sunday Star-Times.

OPINION: What message is the Government sending to young people who want careers in the arts, by its move to scrap art history from the school curriculum as a standalone subject?

Parts of art history can be wrapped into visual arts subjects like photography, painting or design, but that’s not the same. The problem is, this isn’t an isolated curriculum tweak ‒ it’s part of a wider dismantling of arts education pathways in New Zealand. This same Government last year cut funding for the lauded Creatives in Schools programme.

This, on top of the shuttering of arts schools like Wellington’s Te Auaha, alarming lay-offs at creative organisations like Wētā FX and the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, and, as one industry representative recently told The Post, a “full-blown crisis” unfolding within our screen sector that’s grappling with a massive drop in production activity.

The Government can’t be blamed for every redundancy, but its decisions are part of a larger story playing out ‒ the slow erosion of pipelines that once nurtured our historians, writers, artists, designers and creative thinkers.

Just last week Toi Mai ‒ the creative workforce development council that itself is being disestablished by the Government ‒ released a report that found the country’s creative sector is our fourth-largest export industry, and it contributed $12.9 billion to the economy in 2022 from just 90,000 jobs.

Productivity in the sector was about $346,000, compared with $317,000 in the agriculture sector, and well above the economy-wide average of $197,000 per full-time equivalent worker, it found.

Education Minister Erica Stanford has pointed the finger at low student numbers, and says parts of the subject will instead be taught within practical visual arts subjects like painting, photography or design.

Without foundational arts education, New Zealand risks starving its own creative economy.

Since writing about art history’s fate in schools, I’ve been inundated with messages about how transformative as a subject it was for people ‒ people like Dame Jane Campion, who told me it was the only subject she looked forward to in sixth form (year 12), and that it was a crucial step towards the creative life that took her to the Oscars stage.

This decision goes against the Government’s own national cultural strategy that talks of nurturing talent. One of its stated goals is to “develop a creative education work programme that increases learners’ exposure to New Zealand creative and cultural activity through the curriculum and curriculum supports”.

While Education Minister Erica Stanford cited low enrolment or achievement numbers in art history compared with other subjects, experts told me it’s not a niche subject and instead is a discipline that teaches cultural understanding, critical thinking and global context. Campion makes the astute point of a less visually literate population navigating the internet in the AI age.

What happens when we raise a generation who can’t read images or place their culture in context? And what is next for the chopping block? History, classics?

Regardless of student numbers, any decision to remove an arts-based subject at school will disproportionately affect children who have no access to learning opportunities outside the classroom. The sector has also said the decision will result in lower university subject viability.

Without robust teaching frameworks that connect New Zealand’s unique artistic traditions, we risk cultural amnesia ‒ and a future where our stories are told by others, or by New Zealanders forced overseas. In 2025 we need less, not more dependence on international cultural expertise.

STEM subjects are often framed as essential to innovation, while the arts are treated as expendable. But creativity and storytelling are central to innovative thinking.

“We want parents and young people to know that students will have the knowledge and skills that open doors for them when they finish school,” said Stanford in defence of the decision after 25 major galleries wrote urging her to reverse it. “Various art and social science subjects are still available.”

The minister may insist the arts are still available ‒ but availability without value is the same as abandonment.