Arts Education institutions and programs create an excellent framework for personality development: learning knowledge, learning skills and learning life. Their attainment requires education to be a holistic concept of advancement that includes aesthetic practice and involvement with the arts. It challenges them to use their actions to think about the meaning of life, in as much as everyone can use artistic experiences to affirm and interrogate their self-image. The Research Program of the UNESCO Chair in Cultural Policy for the Arts in Development at the University of Hildesheim in Germany brought together experts from the Universities in Dar Es Salam, Kampala, Nairobi, Pretoria, Johannesburg, Casablanca and Tunis and further independent researchers to exchange concepts in Cultural Policy for Arts Education.

Wolfgang Schneider (PhD) was Founding Director of the Department of Cultural Policy at the University of Hildesheim and UNESCO Chair in Cultural Policy for the Arts in Development. He is Chairman of the National Fund for Performing Arts and Honorary President of ASSITEJ. Emily Achieng Akuno is a professor of music at the Technical University of Kenya. She is the editor and a contributing author of Music Education in Africa: Concept, Process and Practice. She is a former president of the International Music Council and current President of the International Society for Music Education as well as chair of the Music Education Research Group – Kenya. Yvette Hardie is the Director of ASSITEJ South Africa, and works as a theatre administrator, director, producer and educator, focusing on theatre for young audiences. She has written national curricula and textbooks for Dramatic/Creative Arts, and has taught widely in secondary and tertiary contexts. She is Honorary President of ASSITEJ. Daniel Gad is a cultural policy researcher (PhD) and managing director of the Hildesheim UNESCO Chair in Cultural Policy for the Arts in Development with a focus on artistic freedom, networking in the arts sector and the transformative power of the arts.