Research shows that creative subjects are important for schools kids’ development and their desire to learn.

"Good teaching in creative subjects results in more contentment at school in general, greater self-confidence and desire to learn. The opposite clearly reduces the child’s creativity and drive, which, in the long run, has consequences for the level of innovation and the economy", said Anne Bamford, in a meeting with the Culture and Education Committee and the Council of Europe in Copenhagen in September this year.

Bamford is one of the leading European experts in this area - an area, however, where little research has been done.

To ensure that the Nordic countries maintain a strong position in the global economy, the committee believes that there must be development through art involving the whole school.

"It is vital for children and young people to have the opportunity to express themselves creatively. The quality of this teaching is extremely important. We need to live by innovation and creativity in the future. We have the best conditions for this in the Nordic countries, but it means that schools and culture must work together so that this area does not fall between two stools", said Mogens Jensen, chair of the Culture and Education Committee in the Nordic Council.

Norway, with its community cultural schools and "The Cultural Schoolbag" which covers all Norwegian schools, is, in many ways, a model for the rest of the region with regard to creativity in schools. The Culture and Education Committee is now calling for a common Nordic approach to the subject, bearing in mind research and knowledge sharing in this area.

Outside the Nordic region there has also been a realisation that creativity and school go together. OECD is opening up the opportunity for introducing a creative PISA, i.e. including aesthetic subjects the PISA surveys.

In conjunction with the 20th anniversary of the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child in 2009, the politicians propose that the Nordic Culture and Education Committee adopts a joint declaration on providing Nordic children and young people with the option to take creative subjects at school.

The Culture and Education Committee’s proposal will be debated at the Nordic Council Session, which will take place in the Swedish parliament at the end of October.