UNESCO International Arts Education Week 2016

UNESCO International Arts Education Week is an arts education advocacy event that draws attention to the role arts education plays in a global agenda of peace and cultural understanding. This is a great time to focus on and advocate for your arts education programs with parents, teachers, the media and your arts associations.

We support International Arts Education Week because we believe that arts education promotes personal and social well-being. Arts education develops students’ self-esteem, social interactions and confidence.

Key information

The UNESCO International Arts Education Week 2016 theme will recognise the ongoing importance of arts education in contributing to local and global awareness of cultural, economic, environmental and humanitarian concerns. Arts education with a core emphasis on doing/making/presenting offers exciting, dynamic, cross-generational opportunities for action.

The World Alliance for Arts Education proudly advocates for the role that arts educators and artists can have in educating for sustainable development in formal, informal and non-formal education contexts.

Research shows (Burnard & White, 2008; Cremin, Burnard & Croft, 2006; Serota, 2012) pupils at schools where the arts are integrated into the curriculum show stronger performance in math, English, critical thinking and verbal skills. It is important that schools foster the growth of intellectual intelligence through the arts, where educating the whole person is vital if schools are to foster the growth of well-rounded young people.

The arts require an engagement of the intellectual, social and emotional levels of communication. Such an engagement of the body, heart and mind is known to develop confidence, self-esteem and wellbeing and features strongly in the school curriculum documents of many countries. Let us focus on the arts in our schools, so we can work together to build a peaceful, culturally tolerant, economic future through our young people by providing them with an opportunity to grow through the arts.