Keith Budge

Amongst the good places to be in Britain, the National Theatre and the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon are up there. What I see or do when in these places is almost secondary to being there.  Soaking it up in the National Gallery is a close second. Knowing that this country once had the courage to provide the necessary subsidy to create a national theatre; it is daily fillip to see what a beacon our two great theatres are for work that makes us think about how we live. This feeling is compromised by knowing what is going on in maintained schools at the moment. Writing in The Guardian, the Director of the National Theatre, Rufus Norris, asked why we are squeezing the creativity from our schools.

In late 2014, the Secretary of State for Education declared that the days when arts and humanities subjects could be relied on as useful were behind us, and that STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) were the way to go. For all of her subsequent backpedaling on this point, it remains pretty clear that arts and humanities are considered soft and irrelevant by this government. STEM subjects are vital, of course, and I welcome the Prime Minister's recent announcement of a government push on maths, science and technology in schools, and a new national college for digital skills and coding. Nonetheless, I remain concerned about this instinct to promote STEM subjects at the expense of a wider education. It needn't be a zero sum game.