National Advocates for Arts Education

We are deeply concerned about the number of creative arts courses that have been discontinued or are currently under review at Australian tertiary institutions. Our survey indicates that over 26 courses have been axed since 2018. Today, we met with senior advisors to the Minister for the Arts, The Hon Tony Burke MP, and Special Envoy for the Arts, Susan Templeman, to outline our key concerns. Stay tuned for updates.

With several Australian tertiary arts, creative industries, and arts education courses being discontinued, reduced, or currently under review, the NAAE is conducting an anonymous survey to gauge the full impact of these changes. If you know of a course or major at an Australian university that has been affected between 2018 and 2025, please consider submitting an anonymous response to the survey. https://lnkd.in/g2dSKAWs

Happy World Teachers’ Day! Today, we celebrate the incredible impact of teachers across all disciplines, but we want to give a special shout-out to arts educators who inspire creativity, expression, and imagination every day! As Albert Einstein beautifully said, “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” Arts teachers do exactly that—they spark passion, open minds, and help students discover the beauty in the world around them. Thank you to all the arts educators who encourage creativity and innovation in the classroom, and beyond. Your work shapes the future and makes the world a more vibrant place! #WorldTeachersDay2024 #ThankYouTeachers #ArtsEducation #CreativityInTheClassroom Australian Institute for Teaching & School Leadership (AITSL) Drama Australia Australian Society for Music Education (ASME) ATOM (Australian Teachers of Media) Art Education Australia National Association for the Visual Arts

We are pleased to report that the Queensland Greens have responded to our Queensland Election Statement and have supported our election asks as follows: 1. An inquiry into arts education and training. 2. An independent review of the QCAA's senior arts syllabuses and related processes and QTAC's intersubject scaling for all senior subjects. 3. Support for implementation of arts curricula across the five arts subjects in Queensland. 4. Increased funding and partnerships with Arts Queensland to specifically support the provision of teaching artists in schools to co-develop with educators' arts engagement programs. We thank the Queensland Greens for their support of NAAE's statement. We have also written to Queensland Labor and Queensland's Liberal National Party (LNP) and hope they too will support our election statement.

In the lead-up to the Queensland state election, NAAE held an arts education roundtable to identify the major issues for arts education and training in Queensland. Read our our full statement here. We are concerned about the state of arts education and training in Queensland. If you are too, please feel free to send it to your state MP and candidates prior to the election. The Arts are in crisis in Queensland and now is the time to act.

Congratulations to Dr Jason Goopy (Edith Cowan University) and current President of Australian Society for Music Education (ASME) who is won the Kodály Excellence in Australian Kodály-inspired Music Education: Research! Congratulations, Jason! 👏👏👏🎶🎼🎵🎓 https://lnkd.in/ggTGMmAh

And more great news from the InSEA (International Society for Education through Art) Conference! Congratulations Associate Professor Kathryn Coleman (University of Melbourne) and the current president of Art Education Australia who has also won the InSEA Award for Excellence in Praxis in Art Education! Go Kate! 👏👏👏🎨🖌️🖼️👩🏼🎨📸

Congratulations Dr Abbey MacDonald (University of Tasmania) who is the immediate past president of Art Education Australia and who has just won the InSEA (International Society for Education through Art) Award for Excellence in Praxis in Art Education! Australian Arts Educators are world leaders in their field! Well done, Abbey! 👏👏👏

We hosted a Queensland Arts Education and Arts Training Roundtable with representatives from across the education, training, and industry sectors. It’s evident that Arts Education and Arts Training in Queensland are in a state of crisis. Our discussions covered a wide range of issues, including curriculum design, subject scaling, arts funding, digital infrastructure, professional development, skills shortages, and initial teacher education, among others. Stay tuned for more updates as we approach the Queensland state election. A huge thank you to everyone who attended and contributed, and to Professor Sandra Gattenhof and QUT for hosting. #artsed #artseducation #ArtsTraining

Another big week for Arts and Creative education! This week, our Chair, Dr John Nicholas Saunders, PhD (NAAE/ACU), Professor Daniel X. Harris (RMIT), and Dr Rachael Jacobs (Western Sydney University) provided a briefing to The Hon Jason Clare MP, Minister for Education's Schools Advisor about the recent PISA Creative Thinking assessment and Australia's performance. Australia ranked 4th globally in Creative Thinking! The meeting reported on a Forum hosted by Arts Nexus at Western Sydney University for Australian educators. You can read more about the key points here: https://lnkd.in/gwgQbc_z