Source: Telegraph >> Read full article and comment
Museums are being swamped by a “tide of children with worksheets” spoiling trips for other visitors, the Head of the Imperial War Museum has warned.
Most centres are full and struggling to solve problems caused by the growing numbers of school field trips, which is affecting other “non-school visitors”,Diane Lees said.
In a private address to the Museums Association, the organisation’s first female director general called for a “revolution” that ensured cultural centres survive the economic downturn.
Mrs Lees, a member of the Women Leaders in Museums Network, complained she did not want to “expand classrooms in museums” because they were already at capacity from the “tide of children with worksheets”.
One solution, she said, was for teachers to be instead given course modules about history so students could learn about historic world events in the classroom.
Despite £1.3bn in funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, many museums were “unsustainable” and “ill-equipped to cope” with an economic downturn and had failed to learn lessons from the last recession, she added.
Admitting her ideas would be “destructive”, she defended the address, titled “Out of the Ashes … Post Recession Museums”, which she insisted provided “real food for thought”…. Continue reading
