A strict hierarchy of academic subjects has been in place in our schools and universities for the last two decades: governments across the globe have powered and funded the STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) at the expense of the rest of the curriculum.
What‘s behind this astonishing government push?
Why such an open betrayal of the avowed aim of most modern educational thinking to provide our children with ‘breadth and balance’?
Sadly, the reason lies mostly in economics; this choice belies a fierce commitment to equip the next generation with the skills to keep a country competitive on the international markets, its workforce at the highest level of tech and science know-how.
Something very precious has been sacrificed.
The impact of this perversely narrow focus is that the arts subjects have been downgraded, both in schools and universities.
Languages, humanities, art, music and drama have had funding ruthlessly cut. Universities across the globe talk of a drastic drop in numbers of students taking up the arts. Worse still, some arts subjects are disappearing entirely from many European universities: music, anthropology, archeology, philosophy, art history and classical and modern languages.
Children themselves have assimilated this bias; as young as 12 and 13, where given a choice, our young adults opt for STEM subjects in favour of the arts, quoting STEM as the route to the ‘top jobs’, and of course, to the top salaries.
Are the arts just an outdated privilege, a pursuit for our leisure hours but not a serious option for academic study?
Or do the arts bring anything that the STEM subjects cannot?
In schools, we know that a ‘broad and balanced’ curriculum is essential to the holistic development of the child and young adult.
The STEM subjects foster the invaluable skills of analytical thinking, technical know how, innovation, problem-solving and slow, close observation.
However, educators see that it is the arts that:
- build deep understanding, tolerance and empathy, for oneself and for others
- Foster social skills and communication across individuals and cultures
- Create communities and collaborative thinking
Perhaps most significantly, the arts enable young adults to pore into their hearts and souls and to express what they find there.
By exploring our rich traditions of thought, literature, the humanities and the visual arts, a young person gains perspective, inspiration and a sense of infinite possibility.
Now more than ever, in this epidemic of youth anxiety and isolation, it is the arts that will provide a redemptive space in which to explore what it means to be human and to find solace in the great thinkers and artists who have gone before.
Audrey Reeder, May 2026
