International Arts Education Week

Arts education brings together two fundamental dimensions of human development: culture and education.

Arts education is a key part of a comprehensive education. It advances learning outcomes and teaches new skills, benefitting learners of all ages.

Arts education helps build self-confidence and well-being; it stimulates curiosity, inspiration, creativity and respect for diversity. In challenging contexts, arts education is a means for stress relief and creating bonds, especially in a multicultural and multilingual environment.

Arts education is relevant to advancing several SDGs, in particular SDG 4 on quality education.

Arts education helps enhancing opportunities for decent work and employment through culture and creativity in line with SDG 8. Arts education facilitates conflict mitigation and peace-building, in the spirit of SDG 16. 

Across the globe, more than 1.5 billion learners have been affected by school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In these challenging times, we need arts education more than ever. UNESCO has long worked to strengthen the links between culture and education, and their fundamental role in promoting social cohesion, sustainable development and peace.

As we celebrate International Arts Education Week, I hope you will join me in promoting arts education, so that, together, we can build a better future rooted in creativity.