Move over, stuffed teddies. Museums today need more to stimulate young minds | Tristram Hunt

An old childhood favourite reopens its doors this week. A revamp was long overdue, says its director

Here is a curious tension. This month, the government announced an extra 77m to support new creative clusters" across film, fashion, TV and gaming. With the creative industries supporting more than 2m jobs and bringing in 108bn a year to the British economy, it makes sense.

Yet at the same time, we are throttling the pipeline. The last 12 years have witnessed a 60% collapse in the number of young people taking art and design GCSE - alongside equally terrible falls in music, drama and other creative subjects. To no one's great surprise, this is accelerating the longer-term trend of shuttering arts, languages and humanities departments across British universities.

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