EBacc debate: schools minister “failed to address the decline in entries for arts subjects”

Date
6 July 2016

Bacc for the Future, the campaign for including arts subjects in the core English school curriculum, has responded to this week’s EBacc debate in the House of Commons. In a statement, the campaign group has said that schools minister Nick Gibb has “failed to address the concerns of the Bacc for the Future campaign."

Shadow Attorney General Catherine McKinnell MP brought the petition to the floor on 4 July, after the petition (started by a teacher and supported by Bacc for the Future) to include arts in the EBacc garnered over 100,000 signatures. In her contribution to the debate, she questioned the government’s stance on the differentiation between so-called academic subjects (citing history and geography) and arts subjects.

While Blackpool MP Richard Marsden argued the fundamental: “What is measured is what gets valued.” SNP MP for Motherwell and Wishaw Marion Fellows followed up: “There is a danger that we will exclude huge numbers of children from an education in the expressive arts by focusing on what is seen by some as more “useful” or “academic” subjects.”

Despite argument on the matter, the Minister of the State for Schools, Conservative MP Nick Gibb, said that there was already ample room for students studying the EBacc to also take up an arts subject, or high-quality vocation pathway “in addition to those core academic subjects”. He maintained that “There is no reason why the EBacc should imperil the status of arts subjects,” and that enforcement of arts subjects would conversely limit free choice, and possibly disadvantage students from poor backgrounds who want to take a more academic pathway.

He concluded that the government’s position would be maintained, saying: “We believe that for too long pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds have been dismissed, missing out on the core academic curriculum that is taken as a given by their more affluent peers. Our EBacc policy will ensure that that is no longer the case.”

David Lammy MP for Tottenham has thrown his support behind the issue, relaying: “I was recently at the London College of Fashion, which with Goldsmiths and all the other art colleges is asking, “Where are the working-class students?” They have disappeared from the system…excluding expressive arts subjects from the EBacc will compound the problem.”

Deborah Annetts, co-founder and coordinator of the Bacc for the Future campaign and chief executive of the Incorporated Society of Musicians, has refused to back down on the issue. “It is disappointing that the minister’s response failed to address these valid concerns, and failed to address the recent decline in entries for arts subjects,” she says. “We will be writing to the minister to follow up his comments and respond in detail to his speech.”

In response, MPs from across the political spectrum raised the concerns of the hundreds and thousands of individuals:









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About the Author

Jamie Green

Jamie joined It’s Nice That back in May 2016 as an editorial assistant. And, after a seven-year sojourn away planning advertising campaigns for the likes of The LEGO Group and Converse, he came back to look after New Business & Partnerships here at It’s Nice That. Get in touch with him to discuss new business opportunities, and how we can work together on creative partnerships, insights, experiences or advertising.

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