Arts and culture contribute to children’s ability for new development and innovation. If education in the arts is not included as a compulsory part of basic schooling, it will have a negative influence on a society’s ability to create innovative scientists and engineers who can invent patentable products and create new businesses.

The creative habits acquired through artistic activities have importance for the ability to create new products and better products. The arts and humanities are a basis for the discussion of which new products are the proper ones to develop. It is about what is technically possible and but also about what type of society we want. It deals with the responsibility we assume when we develop products and methods – ethically, value-wise and morally.

Arts and culture as an industry are in themselves an important part of, for example, the EU’s gross domestic product (GDP). In 2019, the industry amounted to 4.4 % of the EU’s GDP, with a higher annual growth than the EU’s average GDP.

Creative innovation requires knowledge, training and methods for idea development. Teaching creativity is a balancing act between training of skills and free inventiveness. It should not be left to chance, but assumed to be a prerequisite for providing children the opportunities to be successful in a society in which everything constantly changes.

Read more:

All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education

https://childrenneedarts.com/reports/all-our-futures-creativity-culture-and-education/

The Arts Dividend Revisited

https://childrenneedarts.com/books/the-arts-dividend-revisited/

Arts and Crafts Critical to Economic Innovation

https://childrenneedarts.com/articles/arts-and-crafts-critical-to-economic-innovation/

Why scientists need arts training for the safety of society

https://childrenneedarts.com/articles/why-scientists-need-arts-training-for-the-safety-of-society/