Germany/ 8.3 Arts and cultural education  

8.3.1 Institutional overview

At the federal level, the main governmental responsibility for art and cultural education lies with 3 ministries: the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, the Federal Government Commissioner for Cultural and Media Affairs and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

The Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth started implementing their "Discrete Youth Policy" in 2011. In particular, the field of Cultural Education can advance the area of accepting non-formal education and cooperation with formal education. In addition to an innovation fund for Cultural Education in the realms of "Discrete Youth Policy", in 2012 the ministry will provide approximately 8.5 million EUR in order to advance the federal infrastructure and professional enhancements in the practices of cultural policy.

The Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media announced a support programme for pilot programmes of artistic and cultural intermediation in 2011 in the amount of 1.2 million EUR. The subsidy for this programme is planned to be increased in the upcoming year.

Supported will be sustainable model projects, qualifications, nationwide conferences, recommendation focused research, that give impetus for a qualified artistic and cultural intermediation and enable new methodical approaches. These projects should aim especially those people that don't come into contact with cultural activities offered by traditional cultural institutions and enable them to own cultural activities.  

The "Alliance for Education" was established by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and forms a cooperation of 29 initiatives, associations and foundations in the field of culture, education, sports and economy to support and encourage educationally disadvantaged children and young people. In this context the minister pronounced his high appreciation for the art as developer of the personality. In the coming years the ministry seeks to realise concrete assistance measures on an extensive scale through the programme "Pact on Education" which will start in February 2012.

Cultural education opportunities in- and outside the regular school curricula are offered by public institutions of the Länder or local authorities and by independent initiatives engaged in cultural (youth) work such as music schools, art schools for young people, interdisciplinary cultural workshops and media centres. Some of these initiatives rely on private or mixed funding.

The results of recent cultural policy discussions revealed that arts education for children and young people in schools and in non-school education has to be strengthened. The "Enquete-Kommission" on Culture in Germany placed this topic on the top of its agenda. Other initiatives worth mentioning are:

• in spring 2007, a programme entitled "An Instrument for Every Child" was initiated in the Ruhr district. It was developed by the German Federal Culture Foundation, the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Foundation for the Future of Education. Under the programme, primary school children are to be trained in schools by music teachers in an instrument of their choice for four years. The cost of approximately 35 million EUR is being met by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes, the land North Rhine-Westphalia and private promoters, as well as by a small contribution from parents. The four-year-introduction phase of the programme is going into permanent operation in the Ruhr, sponsored exclusively by the State of North Rhine-Westphalia. In NRW, in the school year of 2011/2012, 686 schools and 60 719 pupils are taking part. The idea of the project is taken from initiatives in other states e.g. Hamburg, Saxony and Hesse.
• the arts education programme for children and young people, called "Kinder zum Olymp!" supported by the Cultural Foundation of the Länder in co-operation with private sponsors. A school competition was sponsored by the then Federal President Horst Köhler; see http://www.kinderzumolymp.de);
• an initiative to support children and youth culture sponsored by the cities of Munich and Hamburg;
• since 2009 the Commissioner for Cultural and Media Affairs awards a prize to 3 projects of cultural education every year (endowed with a total of 60 000 EUR);
• to present examples of good-practice of cooperation between institutions of cultural education and schools, the Federal Ministry for Families, Seniors, Women and Youth and the Association of Cultural Education for Children and Youth set up a competition called Mixed Up. Since 2005, it awards annual prizes; and
• with the school year 2011/12, a new programme "Cultural Agents for Creative Schools" started in 5 states (North-Rhine Westphalia, Berlin, Hamburg, Baden-Württemberg, Thuringia). It is initiated and funded by the German Foundation of Culture and the Mercator Foundation together with the ministries for culture of those states. For a period of 4 years, cultural agents will come into schools to develop a cross disciplinary concept on cultural education together with pupils and teachers and to build up long-term cooperation between schools and cultural institutions.

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