Campaign opposes arts cuts

Creative and education unions have joined forces with arts organisations to save education from an "Arts Apocalypse".

The NEU and NSEAD teaching, Equity performers and creative practitioners’, MU musicians and WGGB writers’ unions, together with organisations including Black Lives in Music, Access Art, and Music for Youth have formed a 15-organisation strong coalition to "spotlight the erosion of the Arts across the curriculum in schools and colleges".

The coalition says arts education has been decimated as school leaders make impossible choices on "an ever-dwindling budget and a damaging focus on a narrow curriculum". The recruitment of specialist teachers in arts subjects has fallen to dangerous levels that threaten "the very existence of quality Arts education in schools".

It is calling for a commitment to arts education to arrest the decline and build an education system fit for the 21st century.

Equity says all politicians should to commit to a significant increase in education spending, with specific funding for arts education, to increase the supply of teachers in the arts and to rebuild arts education organisations that support schools.

MU national organiser Chris Walters said that access to music education is "how we can ensure that the next generation of professional musicians aren’t only those whose families could afford to pay for lessons".