Aligning global and national visions for arts education

From Framework to Futures: Mobilising UNESCO framework for culture and arts education and REVIVE in International Arts Education Week

Did you know that 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 International Arts Education week?

This week, as we celebrate UNESCO International Arts Education Week (19–25 May 2025), NAAE is reminded of the transformative potential of the arts and arts education in shaping equitable, creative, just, inclusive and sustainable futures.

In May 2024, UNESCO released a landmark Framework for Culture and Arts Education that reaffirmed the transformative role of culture and the arts, and in January 2023 the Australian Government released its cultural policy Revive: National Cultural Policy which aligns with this vision, placing First Nations First and recognising artists as central to national identity and wellbeing.

For arts educators, these two documents offer not just endorsement, but a strategic lever for real policy change in schools and teacher education.

The NAAE is a coalition of peak Arts and Arts education associations that represent approximately 10,000 Arts educators across Australia. NAAE members are Art Education Australia (AEA), Australian Dance Council – Ausdance, Australian Society for Music Education (ASME), Australian Teachers of Media (ATOM), Drama Australia and the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA).

NAAE is therefore uniquely positioned to activate these frameworks through policy engagement and public discourse.

UNESCO Framework (2024):

  • Calls for integrated arts and culture education across formal, non-formal and informal sectors.

  • Frames culture and the arts as essential to SDG 4.7, promoting global citizenship, sustainability, and human rights.

  • Emphasises lifelong and life-wide learning, and cultural diversity as a right and resource.

Revive (2023):

  • Pledges to embed the arts in all education stages, with First Nations arts and culture at the core.

  • Recognises artists as workers and commits to building training pathways and cultural infrastructure.

  • Prioritises arts access for all Australians, especially in regional, remote and underrepresented communities.

Together, these frameworks provide a creative policy ecosystem supporting arts education as not just desirable but essential for all Australians.

What this means for Arts Education – from advocacy to action

  • Teacher Education Reform

    • The UNESCO Framework (Clause 31) calls for revised teacher education to include arts and cultural education, with pedagogies drawn from both living heritage and creative industries.

    • Revive commits to pathways that support arts educators, including vocational and community-based training, and positions culture as core to student identity and national cohesion.

  • Position Arts Education as essential to SDG 4.7

    • Arts and culture education enables, expands, and sustains spaces and communities of learning… critical to sustainably address global challenges.” (Introduction, Clause 2)

    • Arts and culture education promotes lifelong and lifewide learning through engagement in local living cultural heritage and expressions, Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing…" (Clause 17)

    • Arts and culture education ensures access, inclusion, and equity for all learners, especially Indigenous Peoples... should be able to access, participate in and contribute to relevant culture and arts education and thrive.” (Clause 15)

    • Arts and culture education supports and creates the conditions for intercultural dialogue, social cohesion, and conflict prevention

    • Establish training pathways for arts workers at all stages through culturally appropriate training and skills development.” (Pillar 1: First Nations First)

  • Curriculum Advocacy

    • Embed culture and creativity in education systems so that all Australian students have the opportunity to receive an education that includes culture, creativity, humanities and the arts." (Ten Guiding Principles, p.19)

    • Support arts educators and cultural producers so that Visual and Performing Artists and arts workers have career structures that are long-term and sustainable, supported by vocational pathways.” (p.19)

    • NAAE calls for an arts education curriculum review aligned with UNESCO’s holistic vision: culture as knowledge, process, and practice.

    • We need to protect arts time and funding in school curricula and reframe it as contributing to wellbeing, reconciliation, and future-focused learning.

  • First Nations Leadership

    • Both policies foreground First Nations-led initiatives. 

    • Advance First Nations-led arts education to support sixty primary schools around Australia to teach local First Nations languages and cultural knowledge." (Pillar 1 Actions, p.30)

    • NAAE calls for the integration of First Nations knowledges, languages, and pedagogies into teacher training and school-based arts programs.

  • Cross-sector Collaboration

    • We must foster cultural literacy from early childhood education that recognises arts and humanities... as crucial and productive vocations." (p.12)

    • NAAE calls for partnerships with arts organisations, cultural institutions, and universities to mobilise place-based, community-led arts education.

Conclusion: A Time to Revive and Reimagine

As we celebrate UNESCO International Arts Education Week (May 19–25, 2025), we do so with a deepened sense of urgency and responsibility. The UNESCO Framework for Culture and Arts Education (2024) and Australia's National Cultural Policy Revive (2023) converge at a critical moment for arts educators: both articulate a vision where culture and the arts are not only central to education but also foundational to more equitable, sustainable, and just futures.

Together, these frameworks are more than policy documents, they are calls to action.

For NAAE, the alignment of global and national cultural policy provides a strategic platform for advocacy and transformation. It is a chance to reclaim arts education as essential, not optional — vital for learner wellbeing, intercultural understanding, truth-telling, and innovation.

NAAE envisions a future where every learner across Australia:

  • Has access to arts education in and beyond school;

  • Encounters First Nations cultural knowledges as living, place-based pedagogies

  • Taught by educators whose training prepares them to integrate arts, culture, and creativity as critical capacities;

  • Learns in a system where the arts are respected as both human right and national asset.

As a coalition representing over 10,000 arts educators, NAAE commits to:

  • Advocating for curriculum reform aligned with the UNESCO Framework;

  • Ensuring teacher education and professional learning foreground cultural and arts pedagogies;

  • Partnering across sectors to advance equity, access, and excellence in arts education;

  • Protecting and expanding time and resources for the arts in every Australian school.

This is our moment to revive, to reimagine and to respond to the needs of tomorrow, today.

Lead Author: Associate Professor Kathryn Coleman (NAAE Council Member; President of Art Education Australia; Associate Professor in Visual Arts & Design Education at the Faculty of Education, The University of Melbourne).

Julie Dyson