In July of this year, the Executive Board of UNESCO adopted priority rankings for its five major programmes along with a recommendation that the lowest priorities be considered for elimination.
Within these rankings, the cultural programme was accorded a proportionately low number of A and B level ratings and the creativity program (within which arts education is accommodated) was effectively ranked 48 out of 48 priorities overall. This means that it is at risk of elimination.
If these rankings remain unchanged when the General Conference meets in November, the result could be that no staff member within UNESCO would be permitted to spend time on the creativity file, including arts education.
However: It is not too late to modify the priority rankings.
The final rankings will be voted on by the committees and we can contact the National Commissions of UNESCO in our own countries to express our concern about the future of creativity as a priority within UNESCO programming.
To contact the UK commission, you can use the contact details below:
Chairperson : Professor William John Morgan
Vice-Chairperson : Ms Sue Davies
Vice-Chairperson : Mr Tim Williams
Head of the Secretariat/Secretary-General : Mr James Bridge jbridge@unesco.org.uk
Senior Research and Communications Officer : Mr Ian White iwhite@unesco.org.uk
Finance and Office Manager : Ms Andrea Blick ablick@unesco.org.uk
Programme Officer in Scotland (part-time) : Ms Isa Uny
United Kingdom National Commission for UNESCO
c/o United Nations Association-UK
3 Whitehall Court
London SW1A 2 EL
United Kingdom
uknatcom@unesco.org.uk
More advice on what to say can be found using these links:
The Seoul Agenda can be found on the UNESCO website via the following link. http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CLT/CLT/pdf/Seoul_Agenda_EN.pdf
The Road Map for Arts Education can be found via this link. http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CLT/CLT/pdf/Arts_Edu_RoadMap_en.pdf
A list of National Commissions, including the names and contact information of current Presidents/Chairs and Secretary-Generals can be found at the following site. http://www.unesco.org/nac/index.php?lc=E&module=national_commissions&showall=1