ABSTRACT
The place of creativity in education has seen a revolution in value in the past 20 years. In many parts of the world, creativity has moved from the fringes of education, and/or from the arts, to being seen as a core aspect of educating. So why is this? Politics, economics and social change are, of course, intertwined. To take
economic and political change as an example, the globalisation of economic activity has brought with it increased competitiveness for markets, driving the need for nation states to raise the levels of educational achievement of their potential labour forces (Jeffrey and Craft 2001), which we return to later in this section. Economic change is tied to politics, in that large, so-called multinational
companies with global markets have become as powerful – in terms of wealth – as governments. Handy (2001) describes how, in November 2000, Shell and Vodafone each announced their profits for the previous quarter as being £2 billion. BP beat this, in the same quarter, at £2.5 billion. This compared with an announcement from the Chancellor of the Exchequer announcing that, owing to the successful British economy, he would be able to afford, over the coming year, to return £2 billion to the taxpayer in one form or another. The situation – whereby one multinational business alone can have the same amount of resources to play with over just one quarter of the year as a government presiding over the entirety of a country’s social, medical, environmental, defence and other needs has over the course of a whole year – is an indication of the immense potential for powerholding in
parts of the economy. Of course, this representation can be seen as fairly simplified; however, the fact is that many multinational companies do hold enormously high levels of resources. A part of the complex picture of the economy is the changing structure of
the workplace, so that an increasing amount of our economy is now made up of small businesses or organisations employing less than five people and with a turnover of less than £500,000 (Carter et al. 2004). Many of these have strong relationships with, i.e. are consultants or suppliers to, large companies/organisations, although a third of those surveyed sold their products and services direct to the customer in a local context. The Federation of Small Businesses Survey notes that a quarter of those surveyed in 2004 began their business in the last 3 years, and there is also a growing trend in home-based organisations (Carter et al. 2004). Handy (2001) notes that organisations have shifted from organising themselves as pyramids, to operating as networks and customised relationships, involving greater awareness of the ‘customer’ and a higher level of negotiation and contract to ensure satisfaction and continued business. As part of this, he describes the growing web of relationships between the individual and the multinational conglomerate, likening the relationship to one between an elephant (the multinational conglomerate) and a flea (the individual). He predicts that the life of the flea, or the independent worker, is the working life of the future for the majority – and this requires a different kind of attitude to work than previously. No longer is the ‘till death do us part’ analogy from marriage appropriate (except in the sense that marriage and partnership, too, have changed to become more itinerant, transient and network-based). For, at the start of the twenty-first century, employment in any one organisation is not for life. Even by 1996, only 40 per cent of the British labour force had indefinite contracts in full-time work. Education has a dynamic relationship with this shifting world of employment, for not only is the structure of work shifting in what has been described as a revolution ‘comparable to the impact of the massive upheavals of the Industrial Revolution’ (Robinson 2001: 4), but what also makes it so significant is the shift from manufacturing to a situation where ‘knowledge is the primary source of economic productivity’ (Seltzer and Bentley 1999: 9). Thus, what is significant in terms of educational achievement is changing accordingly. So, what is the difference between educational achievement of the past
and that of the future? It is not merely excellence in depth of knowledge about certain domains and knowledge how to undertake certain skills, together with knowing how to learn about new areas, that young people need. Critical to surviving and thriving is, rather, creativity. It is creativity that enables a person to identify appropriate problems, and to solve them. It is creativity that identifies possibilities and opportunities that may not have been noticed by others. And is it creativity which forms the backbone of the
economy based on knowledge (Robinson 2001). In short, educational achievement is being ‘reconstructed’ and re-conceptualised. In this reconstruction and re-conceptualisation, there are interesting
tensions with what had existed previously. For, as documented elsewhere, since the late 1980s, educational structures, organisations, programmes, curriculum, pedagogies, accountabilities, conditions of teachers’ work and their professional status have all been reconstructed (Woods and Jeffrey 1996). For the incoming New Labour government in 1997, education was the top priority. This was paralleled elsewhere in the Western world, where the reconstruction of education became of paramount importance. Interestingly, however, the directions of these reconstructions varied, and in some cases they went in opposite directions. For example, France loosened its central control, whilst in England it increased (Jeffrey and Craft 2001). One of the common objectives, however, was to make education systems
more effective in assisting the nation state to secure higher employment, and maintain economic performance. With manufacturing dispersing globally, new forms of wealth production have emerged, through increased marketing, the growth of service industries, electronic communications and e-commerce markets. This has been called the ‘weightless economy’ (Seltzer and Bentley 1999: 14). Many organisations began to maximise the intellectual and creative capabilities of the labour force, as well as its physical energy and general intelligence. Seltzer and Bentley (1999: 9-10) summarise this, and the challenge posed by these changes for education, as follows:
While qualifications are still integral to personal success, it is no longer enough for students to show that they are capable of passing public examinations. To thrive in our economy defined by the innovative application of knowledge, we must be able to do more than absorb and feedback information. Learners and workers must draw on their entire spectrum of learning experiences and apply what they have learned in new and creative ways. A central challenge for the education system is therefore to find ways of embedding learning in a range of meaning for contexts, where students can use their knowledge and skills creatively to make an impact on the world around them.
