International Arts Education Week (20-26 May)

According to the decision of the 36th session of UNESCO’s General Conference in 2011 (36/C Resolution 38), the 4th week of May was proclaimed as the International Arts Education Week.

Art, in all its diversity, is an essential component of a comprehensive education for the full development of the individual. Today, the skills, values and behaviours promoted by arts education are more paramount than ever. These competencies - creativity, collaboration, and imaginative problem solving - develop resiliency, nurture appreciation of cultural diversity and freedom of expressions, and cultivate innovation and critical thinking skills. As a vector of dialogue in the loftiest sense, art speeds up social inclusion and tolerance in our multicultural, connected societies.

Art brings us closer together. A painting, an artefact, a piece of ancestral music speaks volumes about the history of civilizations and the ties that bind them. It makes us to feel and to understand what unites humanity in the diversity of its cultures and expressions and thus contributing to our bright and sustainable future.

arts, and learning about them, contribute to the building of prosperous and peaceful societies that UNESCO encourages its Member States to support arts education, at school and beyond. Arts education is a key to training generations capable of reinventing the world that they have inherited. It supports the vitality of cultural identities by emphasizing their links with other cultures, thus contributing to the construction of a shared heritage. It helps to form tolerant and dynamic citizens for our globalizing world.

At a time when challenges related to climate, peace, education and the future of our societies are converging, our need for the power of art – and for it to be made accessible to all through arts education – is stronger than ever