A “horrible disparity” is opening between state and private schools in the provision of creative education, the director of the V&A, one of the country’s leading museums, has said.
Speaking at the launch of the Young V&A museum, aimed at children from birth to 14 years, Tristram Hunt said creative education was being downgraded or excluded in many state schools, leading to a 60% fall in the numbers of young people taking art and design subjects at GCSE.
“This is a real problem, and there’s a social inequity here because the private sector is not closing its theatres and art studios, its kilns are still producing ceramics.
“So we’re seeing a horrible disparity emerging between the state and the private sector in terms of provision for cultural education.”
Young V&A, which opens on 1 July after a three-year, £13m redevelopment of the former Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green, could help fill the gap in state school provision, Hunt added.
More than 2,000 objects from the V&A’s collections, dating from 2,300BCE to today and from all over the world, have been put on display at the Grade II*-listed Victorian building. They are exhibited at child height in three galleries focused on play, imagination and design.
