On the 26th November Tate Modern alongside Creative Partnerships invited 500 students from across the country to take part in a creative conference. This event was preceded by a two-year project where 3,000 young people were consulted and 12 U.K-wide secondary schools were asked to generate a manifesto outlining their ideas for a creative Britain and what they felt they needed to be creative, particularly within an educational context.

The manifesto contains 10 key points ranging from wanting more access to the Internet and other technologies as a source of information, requesting more Government investment in young people’s creative abilities, the need for inspiration, to being given space to make mistakes and experiment.

Ambassadors from 10 schools presented these points; this was followed by a student vote on the 11th and 12th points. A landslide result demonstrated that many young people wanted the work and effort they put into extra curricular activities to count more towards their final grades.

The final draft of the manifesto was then presented to the Secretary of State for Culture, Andy Burnham, who responded to its contents and will hopefully take heed of what was presented here and act on it. He certainly believed that creativity could “keep young people inspired and engaged in education”.

Often when politicians and culture rub shoulders it can be an uncomfortable experience for many of those involved, and when young people are thrown into the mix it is difficult to predict the outcomes of such encounters. An openness to listen to the voice of the youth, who are indeed ‘the future’, has been a longstanding rhetoric of politicians, yet, there has been a clear disjunction between this popular party line and its actualization.

Consequently, large scale cynicism regarding how much politicians and the Government are willing to listen to young people is unsurprising, for we find that these viewpoints are ignored on a number of socio-political and economic issues ranging from Top Up Fees to the war on Iraq. Could it really come as a surprise then that some might be skeptical about government ministers’ willingness to broach the younger generations’ opinions on creativity and the arts, when they have previously been unable to take note when thousands have marched on other concerns.

Only time will tell whether or not this politician will make effective use of the information presented at this significant occasion. However, what was apparent was the strong commitment of arts practitioners at the Tate and Creative Partnerships who work to effect change by engaging young people in the discourse through their direct input and involvement, they are indeed establishing a new communication channels between the older and younger generations.