Leading figures in the arts praise plan to scrap the Ebacc

For years, Britain's leading cultural figures have warned that substandard arts provision in schools was devaluing the sector and creating an increasingly elite industry.

- Lanre Bakare Nadia Khomami

But the government's proposed shakeup of the national curriculum - which includes scrapping the English baccalaureate (Ebacc) - has been met with overwhelming positivity, with one figure saying it could end “the madness of the past decade”.

On Wednesday the Department for Education said it wanted to boost the creative subjects taken at GCSE as part of its wider changes to England's national curriculum.

The changes were announced in the government's response to the curriculum and assessment review published this week by Prof Becky Francis, which stated: “The arts subjects are an entitlement rather than an optional extra and are disciplines in their own right.”

James Graham, the playwright who used his MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh TV festival to highlight class inequality in the arts, welcomed the end of “the madness of the past decade” when culture subjects had been devalued.

He said: “It’s important now to look to the future and use this as an opportunity to ask what a modern-day arts curriculum should look and feel like for 21st-century kids, and the challenging times they’re growing up.”

The Turner prize winner Antony Gormley said the “removal of the shadow of Michael Gove and his Ebacc is to be celebrated”, while Anish Kapoor said the arts brought “a sense of empathy to our younger citizens - something which is deeply needed, especially now”.