Official UK Parliament Petition now live! HERE

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Arts education in the UK is in crisis.

Over the past decade, government cuts have forced art schools and creative courses to close across the country.

In 2022, funding for arts and humanities in higher education was cut by 50%, redirecting resources toward STEM and medical subjects - even as the creative industries contributed £126 billion to the UK economy and employed 2.4 million people.

I’m Leanne Cunningham, artist, lecturer, and founder of Lonely Stone Press. I studied Fine Art at UCLan and completed my MA at UAL. For years, I’ve worked to keep creative opportunities alive. But I’m now witnessing first-hand the rapid decline of arts education in the UK. Closures, redundancies, and funding cuts are stripping away opportunities. 

But despite this, closures and underfunding have continued - and will continue unless we act.

I recently resigned from my lecturing role because it became impossible to sustain arts education in a system that is systematically devaluing creativity.

Across the UK, we’re witnessing the erosion of creative education:

• The University of Wolverhampton School of Art is set to close.
• The University for the Creative Arts (Rochester) has permanently closed.
• Once-thriving regional schools like Derby School of Art and Northampton Art School have been lost to demolition or dereliction.
• Leek School of Art has lost its independence after being merged into an FE college.
• Between 2024 and 2025 alone, almost 4,000 university courses,  many in the creative and humanities sectors, were cut.

Research by John Beck and Matthew Cornford (The Art School Project) shows how once-proud civic art schools have been merged, sold, or left empty.

As they write:

“Art schools may be going through a dark period, but they certainly have not had their day.”

Meanwhile, GCSE arts entries have fallen by 47% since 2010, A-level entries by 31%, and teacher recruitment for Art & Design is at just 58% of target. These trends leave young people - especially in deprived areas - with fewer opportunities and what the British Academy calls “cold spots” for arts education.

We call on the UK Government to:

• Reverse the 50% funding cut to arts and humanities in higher education.
• Protect and reinstate creative courses in schools, colleges, and universities.
• Ring-fence national funding to ensure equitable access to arts education across all UK regions.
• Recognise arts education as essential to national culture, identity, and innovation - key to tackling challenges like the climate crisis, social justice, and technological transformation.
• Creative education is not optional.
• It drives innovation in industries from technology and architecture to design and digital media.
• Companies like Apple, Aardman Animations, and Pentagram prove creativity is vital for global competitiveness and sustainable growth.

 
Sign this petition to protect arts education and secure the creative future of the UK.