Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Culture Minister Josepha Madigan, Education Minister Richard Bruton, and Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe, are pictured above with students from St Laurence O’Toole’s Girls National School.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, together with the Culture Minister Josepha Madigan, Education Minister Richard Bruton, and Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe, launched Creative Youth.
Creative Youth, which was launched in St Laurence O’Toole’s Girls National School, Seville Place, sets out measures to deliver on one of the key goals of the Creative Ireland Programme, to ensure that every child in Ireland has practical access to tuition, experience and participation in music, drama, art and coding by 2022.
The first stage of implementation of Creative Youth, which is a five-year Programme, involves a series of key actions for 2018-2019. One of those actions relates to the very successful Music Generation programme. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar announced that the Music Generation programme will now be extended countrywide as soon as possible and certainly by 2022. The Department of Education and Skills will work closely with Music Generation in developing the arrangements for this roll-out.
Speaking at the launch today, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar,
"We want to encourage our young people to be creative thinkers, to expand their minds and to ensure they have the chance to fully explore the joys of creative and cultural endeavour, whether that's learning to code, dance or sing."
Culture Minister, Josepha Madigan, said:
"Creative Youth is a hugely ambitious Plan that commits us to ensuring that by 2022 every child will have practical access to tuition, experience and participation in music, drama, art and coding.”
Education Minister Richard Bruton:
“This plan aligns well with our recently launched STEM Education Policy Statement 2017-2026 which includes a commitment to introduce a new primary Maths curriculum, which for the first time will include elements of coding and computational thinking and also the objectives we have laid out in the Arts in Education Charter.”
Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe, said:
“The Arts Council and the ESRI published an extremely important report called Arts and Cultural Participation among Children and Young People. That report shows that Irish children who participate in artistic and cultural activities cope better with schoolwork, have more positive attitudes towards school later on, are happier, have reduced anxiety, better academic skills and fewer socio-emotional difficulties than those who are less engaged.”
Creative Youth is available to download at creative.ireland.ie