What Michael Gove's statement means for the arts

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/feb/07/michael-gove-school-curriculum-arts

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The bad news for those who believe creative subjects should be central to the school curriculum is that arts subjects have not, as many passionately hoped, been included in the Ebacc. But there is a real change of direction on the arts – and some good news.

They key is that arts will now be among the subjects on which schools' performance will be measured. Instead of league-table positions being calculated on the basis of how many Cs are attained in five GCSEs, the measure will be widened to embrace eight subjects: maths and English; three subjects from the Ebacc; plus, crucially, three others, which may include arts subjects.

This is important because it means schools are less likely to marginalise the arts: under the previous thinking, there was little incentive for schools to cover creative subjects at GCSE, and attention was understandably focused on the "core" of the Ebacc.

But now schools have every reason to offer arts GCSEs. Since they offer an alternative to the highly academic Ebacc subjects, they will be a conduit through which artistically talented children can help boost their schools' league-table placements.

There has been cautious welcome from the arts world. Nicholas Serota, director of Tate, said: "We welcome the news that the government has abandoned elements of its proposals to introduce a system which would have squeezed arts subjects out of the curriculum ... We await fuller details of how a broader curriculum prevails in secondary education." The devil, as ever, will be in the detail: but for the arts in schools, the situation looks considerably rosier than it did 48 hours ago.