Commenting on A class act?: Social mobility and the creative industries, new research published by the Sutton Trust, Daniel Kebede, General Secretary of the National Education Union, said:
“The findings in this report will resonate strongly with NEU members and their experiences. The EBacc and SATs create coercive pressure away from arts provision in the system: they are a significant part of, albeit not the entire problem.
“The systematic reduction in real terms funding for schools means that it is not only a narrowing of the curriculum that has occurred over a decade-plus, but a reduction. Schools simply don’t have sufficient studios, classrooms, equipment or teachers to teach the arts any more because far less is spent on education.
“To reverse this trend, not only will perverse accountability measures need removing but funding for schools and colleges must be improved, with ringfenced funding for the arts. Quite simply you get what you pay for, and at the moment, the investment in education is far below previous levels in England. These choices have consequences and the decimation of the arts in state schools is evidence of just that.”