May 13, 2025

Dr Kerryn Palmer’s speech at Parliament grounds Tuesday 13 May 2025

Kia Ora e te whānau.

He mihi mahana tēnei  ki a koutou katoa i tēnei.

Ko Kerryn Palmer tōku ingoa.

The arts are not ‘Nice to haves’. Nice to haves in my opinion are having more than one house to live in, owning a pool, or perhaps receiving more pay than your colleague, who is a woman, while doing the exact same work. The arts are not nice to haves.

Performing Arts and Young People Aotearoa have been calling for signatures for our Reinstate The Creatives In Schools Programme since October 2024, after the government unexpectedly axed it, cancelling several projects already in progress, affecting many artists’ livelihoods and denying 1000’s of children access to quality arts programmes. 

[Photo by David O’Donnell]

The Creatives in Schools programme ran for 4 years, and key findings from the evaluations found that it was a high-performing programme that supported ākonga and provided a powerful example of how to deliver the school arts curriculum in the 21st century.

There seems to be so much to protest about under this current government (“let me count the ways”) and the call to reinstate Creatives in Schools may seem like a small fish in an ocean of troubles, but I believe that it is fundamental to the well-being of our country to nurture the hearts and minds of our youngest citizens and to make the arts accessible to all. If nothing else, learning and experiencing through the arts will encourage them to govern our country in the future with more empathy, critical thinking, care and common sense than that which is currently being displayed.

The current government says they are worried about school attendance, school achievement and mental health amongst young people. I can guarantee that a 100 million $ investment into maths testing will not fix these issues, but instead create more stress for students and overworked teachers.  The Creatives in Schools programme however provided solutions to many of these issues.  It was proven to increase engagement with school for many, as well as raising the confidence of both teachers and students, and it also, unsurprisingly, increased attendance rates.

The government is obsessed with student outcomes and ‘results’ in numeracy and literacy. The Creatives in Schools Programme actively supported research that proves an arts-rich education increases student achievement in all areas of the curriculum.

Arts minister Paul Goldsmith wants to “nurture talent and encourage more New Zealanders to actively engage with New Zealand arts, culture and heritage.” He has a vision that “the next generation of Kiwis will grow up with access to a wide variety of arts and culture”. The Creatives in Schools programme did this. So why was it cut?

Goldsmith replied to this question with, “The Government recognises the need for a more strategic and systemic approach to arts education. and that Creatives in Schools was a successful programme, but it only targeted a select number of schools.”

Well, minister – now it’s targeting none!

Coupled with a squeeze on arts education and reports that touring Performing Arts companies are having challenges engaging with schools because “teachers are too busy focusing on rigorous standards and changes imposed by the Ministry of Education”, New Zealand Children and Young people are at risk of growing up without access to the arts. A strategic and systematic approach is all well and good, but how long will that take? At what cost?  And do we really trust a government that has so far ignored expert advice and research in so many areas, in particular education?

When as a society we undervalue the arts in favour of the economy and implement outdated educational methodology that focuses on individual student ‘targets’, we are at risk of building a society that focuses on wealth, status and individual success, rather than collective well-being, collaboration and community

The arts are not nice-to-haves. The arts help young people engage their imaginations, dream big and imagine a better future. They encourage children to work collaboratively, solve problems, develop resilience and think outside the square. Not only is studying through the arts a proven way to strengthen your life skills’ such as; communication, leadership, problem-solving, work ethic and time management, further competencies such as collaboration, creativity, resilience, critical thinking, empathy and courage are strengthened through an arts-rich education.

So I ask if we further strip the arts from New Zealand Education, what sort of future Aotearoa will we have?

We call on the government to reinstate this programme immediately, and this doesn’t mean faff around for another year and then attempt to roll out a lower-cost ‘better’ version of it, such as the disaster that is Lunches in schools. There is no need to ‘reinvent the wheel.’ We can pick it up from where we left off, thanks.

We call for future governments to further strengthen the programme and roll it out to ALL schools in Aotearoa.

Creatives in Schools was a low-cost, multi-agency funded programme that worked for children, teachers, communities and artists. We believe that it needs reinstating and strengthening so that all NZ Children can benefit from it.