Arts Council chief accuses Gove of abandoning cultural education

Education secretary risks leaving a generation exposed and robbing children of their birthright, warns Liz Forgan.

• Charlotte Higgins, chief arts writer
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 January 2013

Education secretary risks leaving a generation exposed and robbing children of their birthright, warns Liz Forgan

The Arts Council chief, Liz Forgan, says she is alarmed at the absence of arts subjects from the new Ebacc qualification.

 

Michael Gove is abandoning the next generation's cultural education, leaving them "dangerously exposed" without the basic artistic understanding to recognise themselves and their culture, according to the head of the Arts Council.

In a lecture on Tuesday at the British Museum to mark the end of her tenure as chair of the arts-funding body, Liz Forgan will say the education secretary risks "robbing a generation of its birthright and failing in the duty we all have to continue our culture".

She will say: "Just as we let a whole generation lose the capacity to cook so we are in danger of making the same break in the transmission of our cultural language."

In her speech, titled A Farewell to Arts, Forgan will express alarm at the absence of arts subjects from the Ebacc, the new qualification at 16 awarded to pupils who have gained GCSE grades A-C in five subject areas: maths, English, two sciences, languages and the humanities. By excluding subjects such as art, design, music, dance and drama from the Ebacc, she argues, "a big red signal is hoisted saying with total clarity, 'We don't care'".

She will note that 15% of schools have dropped one or more arts subjects since the Ebacc was introduced.
The lack of arts subjects on the Ebacc has........
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2013/jan/15/arts-council-chief-gove-education