Lack of creativity lamented in 'dour' schools

In a stinging attack on England's education system, Sir Michael Bichard, a former permanent secretary at the Department of Education, said the arts were now just an "add-on", rather than a central part of a rounded education.

He also warned that an obsession with academic subjects is turning hundreds of thousands of teenagers off education.

In a speech to the NEEC conference (formerly the North of England Education Conference) in York yesterday, Sir Michael said: "Sadly, too often our education system does educate people out of their creativity and that is partly because the arts – by which I mean art, music, dance and drama – are too often still at the bottom of the list; the "nice to have", the "add-ons" to our system rather than central components of a rounded education.

"And that's one of the reasons why some talented children spend the day in sighing and dismay."

While basic skills and knowledge are essential, education must also be about developing children's creativity, he said.

In his speech, Sir Michael said he stood by the Government's focus on basic skills, targets and accountability during the late 90s, when he was at the Department for Education, saying there was a need then to address "a crisis of underachievement".

But he added: "The way that crisis was addressed could never be the long term answer. And the danger, to some extent realised, was that education in schools could become excessively narrow."