Creative Partnership’’s Challenge to Creativity Education Paul Collard, Creative Partner’’s National Director in England.

During Creative Partnership in England from the 27th through 29th last November, while thinking about the development of evaluation and methods in art and culture education, I had an interview with the National Director of Creative Partner, Paul Collard. 

Interview Q&A with Paul Collard 

Q. The Korean government has highlighted art and culture education in a series of new policies that integrate culture, education, and welfare. What is the meaning of Creativity Partnership in England?

A. When the Labor Party took office in 1997, they started soul searching on several issues and suggested a variety of alternatives. As a part of the effort they set up the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education. This Committee reached a conclusion after rigorous negotiations and review, finding that the old-fashioned education system in our country is not capable of nurturing a creative workforce appropriate to the 21st century.

Throughout the 19th and 20th Century, England accumulated national wealth from mining and manufacturing, but currently it is the knowledge and creativity-based industries such as finance, tourism, and art that are the backbones of national economic power. At the center of these 21st Century industries come ideas. Whether we can come up with different ways or differentiated ideas as compared with other countries will spell our degree of the success and economic growth. According to government statistics, about 60% of the jobs that our kids will have in the future have not been developed yet. This indicates that new jobs and industries should be built based on creative ideas and not from present perspectives but from those of the future.

However, according to the report from the Committee, our conventional English education system cannot nurture creative talent who can create their own jobs. The Labor Party was shocked and Creative Partnership was launched as an alternative to the problem they faced.

In this context, the keyword for Creative Partnership is not "art education" but "creativity." The goal is to strengthen creative skills for our kids. Creative skills are the capabilities we need to utilize our imaginations. They give us the attitude and courage to challenge new questions and try to come up with solutions for problems without giving in to failures.

Creative Partnership is executing a project to make the proper environment for creative learning by connecting "creative professionals" such as artists and scientists with schools. Through this we bring about changes in the educational system and eventually build a new foundation for our country’’s economic power.

Q. All the policies in every country are subject to evaluations although the standards and duration differs. What do you think would be the minimum period and core evaluation criteria to judge the success of Creative Partnership?

A. I think we need 20 to 25 years of time to gage the success. We should take into account several factors such as how the children and young people who participated in the Creative Partnership grew up and what effects do they have on our economy. The decisive factor in the barometer of our success is whether England has become a country with creativity-based industries that are flourishing 25 years from now.

However, the politicians do not want to wait 20 years to see the results of a policy. Therefore, the people spearheading Creative Partnership, including me, should play a difficult and complicated game with politicians and to win the game we should come up with strategies to show the results of Creative Partnership within 2 years. Here we need a very realistic approach and if we fail to allow for their requests, we should be mindful of this, eventually we might not achieve our objectives.

That was why I had promised to show impact within 2 years when I was appointed as a Director of Creative Partnership back in 2005. Therefore, we are seeking evidence to show the educational effects on students in 2 years while running a long term and in-depth study on the changes both in classrooms and students. The findings and data from the separate studies would be utilized, and in the end, comprehensively analyzed.

Q. Creative Partnership has a National Office under the Arts Council of England and as of 2006 has 36 local offices across the country. What is the top priority for the National Office to lend support to those local offices?

A. To oversimplify it, the major role for the National Office is to quickly finance local offices and to push their standards to a certain level. To do this, we need to have a common and clearly stipulated set of goals and objectives to which everyone agrees. It might seem too obvious but that is the most important part. Each local Creative Partnership should have their independence guaranteed because they should operate based on the different needs and requests of each local school. Therefore, sharing common goals and purposes and reaching a consensus is that much more important. Without first reaching a consensus on the objectives, instead simply by raising the standards for local Creative Partnership by working independently, we might end up being yet another bureaucratic entity that we didn’’t want.

Q. It is very important to assure independence and autonomous operation but at the same time we cannot underestimate the importance of the evaluation on local Creative Partnerships run by public funding. What are the standards and methods through which you evaluate local Creative Partnership’’s activities?

A. The evaluation standards and methods are quite clear. We analyze what changes were brought toward the local schools. The standard is whether the school has become a better one but the issues is what defines a better school. It is not easy to figure out what the better changes are specifically, or what shows "more developed" status than before for each individual student. We have not yet reached an agreement on the criteria but we continue to work on that.

Regarding that, I can take the case of Birmingham. We developed a standard to evaluate the improvement on creativity based on the record showing the changes to the elementary students who took part in the Creative Partnership programs. When these cases spread and data accumulates, the Creative Partnership programs can prove its educational effect. It would be even better when the evaluation system is built online and the students themselves in the programs or their friends can join the reciprocal evaluation process. That way, children can enjoy the evaluation itself and share the work of their teachers.

Q. As a director what was your main focus during your time?

A. It is to protect Creative Partnership for our future. Currently Creative Partnership is designed to continue through 2008. Although Creative Partnership has continuously expanded its business from the year 2002 when it first started, we do not have assurance that the project will continue after 2008.

The Creative Partnership program is actually about the "School Change Program" and ultimately the policies are to change the public education system in Britain. So much so, as many schools as possible should experience the Creative Partnership programs and through this experience we need to develop and operate educational programs to enhance creativity on our own from our own experience. Therefore I will try to secure as much funding as possible by 2008 and support many schools to develop through our Creative Partnership programs.

That was why we invited the Minister of Culture to the Creative Partnership Conference. When requested to give a speech at the conference, the Minister would at least have a chance to think about Creative Partnership. He would have a meeting with his assistants and policy makers of Creative Partnership to review all the data and reports to make a draft of his speech. The idea of course is to make opportunities for public servants to acknowledge Creative Partnership. Actually the Minister came to the Conference and in his speech he pledged to do more to spread the Creative Partnership program to more schools and students. After the speech session, I called for a meeting with the Minister. I expect to see the Minister 2 to 3 weeks later and I will do my best to use that time strategically and effectively so that he puts his money where his mouth is.