Morpurgo boosts call to save arts education

23 Nov 2010

The author, Michael Morpurgo, delivered one of the best lines of the Cultural Learning Alliance's 'Big Link Up' event when he said that when he hears people calling for more 'rigour' in education he wants to add another word....'mortis'.

Morpurgo was just one of several leading arts campaigners to join the CLA event at the British Museum, which was designed to galvanise support to protect access to culture for all young people in the face of ublic spending cuts.

They heard from the Culture Minister, Ed Vaizey, who defended the government's position on arts in schools, saying he was 'not for targets such as 5 hours a week of arts learning'. He said the government believed in allowing schools more local autonomy and said he didn't believe there needed to be a 'diktat for schools to do something'.

He also challenged the CLA to be 'clear about what cultural learning is'.

But the meeting heard many angry complaints from those involved in grass-roots arts and music organisation which were already suffering from cuts introduced by the spending review. There were widespread fears that schools would no longer be able to afford visits to arts venues.

On the eve of the education White Paper (which will launch the coalition government's review of the national curriculum) fears were expressed that a narrow, prescriptive curriculum - backed by 'high stakes tests' - would squeeze out the arts from the classroom.

But the minister said the Schools Secretary, Michael Gove, had called for more 'rigour' in the curriculum...and 'I don't dissent from that'.

This prompted Michael Morpurgo to comment that calls for more rigour tended to make him think of the word 'mortis' in relation to the curriculum.

He asked the minister to explain how we would be able to ensure that children will continue to have access to 'the best quality, and most inspiring, artists and story-tellers who provide those experiences that ignite a child's imagination and take them outside of traditional learning'.

Find out more about the CLA's campaign at: www.culturallearningalliance.org.uk/