This article first appeared in Digital Edge, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on August 11, 2025 - August 17, 2025
What if the most important skill we could teach the next generation is not how to code, but how to imagine?
In today’s rapidly evolving global economy, creativity is emerging as a critical driver of innovation and entrepreneurship. Skills such as creative problem-solving and imaginative thinking are increasingly essential across dynamic sectors including energy transition, advanced manufacturing and biotechnology.
Even in the most technologically advanced companies, creativity remains central. Apple, one of the world’s most valuable companies with a market capitalisation exceeding US$3 trillion (RM12.7 trillion), is as renowned for its imagination and design ethos as it is for its engineering and computing power.
Yet education systems continue to emphasise technical proficiency while often overlooking the creative confidence required to envision new possibilities. This leaves learners ill-equipped to lead in environments where imagination is just as crucial as expertise.
The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2023 identifies creativity as one of the fastest growing skills, with demand projected to rise by 73% by 2027. It now sits alongside analytical reasoning and artificial intelligence (AI) literacy as a core capability for the future workforce.
Unesco’s Creative Economy Outlook 2022 reports that cultural and creative industries account for 6.2% of global employment and provide nearly 50 million jobs. Meanwhile, the World Bank’s Jobs in the Orange Economy projects the creative economy to reach a value of US$985 billion, potentially representing 10% of global gross domestic product by 2030, with anticipated growth of up to 40% this decade.
Asean, with its rich cultural diversity, youthful population and expanding digital landscape, stands at a strategic inflection point. As it moves towards becoming the fourth largest economy in the world, creative capacity must be seen not as a soft asset but as a central pillar of its development strategy.
The invisible barrier
Sir Ken Robinson, a renowned advocate for education reform, famously said “creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status”. Yet despite growing recognition of this insight, most education systems remain structured for a different era.
Built during the Industrial Revolution, these systems were designed to produce a compliant workforce through rigid timetables, teacher-led instruction, subject silos and standardised testing. These conditions persist today, misaligned with the demands of a world shaped by digital disruption, climate adaptation and global interdependence.
Success now depends on interdisciplinary thinking, cultural literacy and creative fluency.
The marginalisation of arts and culture in education is both structural and systemic. Creative disciplines are often perceived as non-essential, useful for enrichment but not economic competitiveness.
As UK Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy recently noted, dismissing these fields as Mickey Mouse degrees is ironic given that Mickey Mouse himself is one of the most valuable intellectual properties in the world. Still, arts programmes are often the first to be cut during budget reviews. Admissions systems and national curricula continue to reinforce the notion that creativity is optional, not fundamental.
This model suppresses creativity by rewarding conformity and penalising experimentation. Students become conditioned to seek right answers rather than ask the right questions. As a result, many graduates have strong technical abilities but lack the imagination and collaborative mindset required for innovation.
In Asean, this comes at a cost to the region’s potential for entrepreneurship, social innovation and globally competitive industries.
Path forward
What will it take to unleash the full potential of creative education and build a future-ready economy?
At the heart of this transformation is a critical mindset shift. Creative education must be prioritised with the same seriousness as science, technology and business. This is not a rhetorical aspiration. It is a strategic imperative.
Long-term, consistent public funding is needed to support creative programmes, cultural institutions and the ecosystems that nurture innovation through imagination. When creativity is treated as essential to national development, it opens new pathways for inclusive growth and societal resilience.
Education systems must also evolve beyond rigid, test-based models. Interdisciplinary learning environments should become the norm, with greater support for teachers to integrate the arts with science and technology. Schools should collaborate with artists, entrepreneurs and industry professionals to create learning experiences that build creative confidence and adaptability.
Equally important is making creative education accessible beyond the classroom. Museums, libraries, theatres and other cultural spaces are vital platforms for lifelong learning and should be resourced accordingly. Local governments and communities must be supported to activate these spaces and extend opportunities to all, especially in underserved areas.
Darren Henley, chief executive of Arts Council England, emphasises the foundational importance of creativity, observing that there are three pillars of a great education: numeracy, literacy and creativity.
As emerging industries reshape global priorities and Asean positions itself as a leading economic force, the region cannot afford to underinvest in its most renewable resource, human creativity. By embedding creativity across learning systems, strengthening institutions and aligning action across sectors, we prepare the next generation not only to participate in the future economy but to shape it.
Creativity is not a luxury. It is our greatest untapped capital.
