Art school futures

The late Sir Ken Robinson attracted great interest for noting the education system's lack of support for imaginative and creative skills This omission has important ramifications throughout society as a whole, especially given the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, not to mention environmental emergencies that threaten our very survival as a species Although our predicament calls for a co-creative and transformative response, this amounts to a paradigm change that is beyond the capacity of our current systems of governance The article therefore calls for a review of education policy that would include some deep reflections on the ecological purpose of learning It suggests that, in order to augment the scholastic and analytical traditions underpinning the modern university, policy-makers should invest in the modernization and development of the traditional art school This should cater for a much larger spectrum of human needs and capabilities These might support ethical, co-creative thinking at all levels, including feeling, acting and experiencing at many simultaneous levels, including head, heart, hand and what the article calls 'humour' © 2021 Intellect Ltd Article English language