The Starting Point for Global Networking
- Arts & Cultural Education, UNESCO, and the Seoul Agenda
At the beginning of the 21st century, UNESCO (The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) began to acknowledge the crucial role of arts education as the very foundation to promote creative educational environments and as an essential element of education itself. To this end, as the first step to form a consensus with the international community, UNESCO proclaimed the “International Appeal for the Promotion of Arts Education and Creativity at School” at its 30th General Conference session in 1999.
In 2010, a decade following this appeal for increased awareness on the importance of arts education, the Second World Conference on Arts Education was held in Seoul, the Republic of Korea.
The most notable outcome of this conference was the “Seoul Agenda: Goals for the Development of Arts Education,” which was agreed upon through in-depth discussions of international experts, regarding the significance of arts education in and out of schools. The Seoul Agenda serves to enlarge the roles and scope of arts education and to encourage its social contribution efforts, while enhancing the overall quality of arts education and acting as a guiding direction for the education system.
Key Contents of the Seoul Agenda
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Secure accessibility to arts education
- Promote arts education from the viewpoint of lifelong education
- Invigorate the re-building of regular and non-regular education systems
- Reinforce PR and policy implementation
- Develop competencies to enhance arts education leadership
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Ensure quality arts education
- Promote cooperation between artists and educators in arts education sites
- Guarantee continuous arts education and training for arts education practitioners
- Develop partnerships for arts education in various segments of the society
- Promote discussions and cross-fertilization among arts education theories, researchers and practices
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Contribute to solutions of social and cultural challenges
- Reinforce the creative and innovative competencies of the society through arts education
- Improve social and cultural welfare through arts education
- Promote social responsibility, social integration, cultural diversity and dialogues between different cultures
- Provide in-depth arts education that deal with global challenges