Talent often seems the most marked characteristic of creative people. It seems obvious that creative people have a special talent that ordinary people lack. But recent research suggests talent is only one of the requirements for a creative economy and probably not the most important one. It is now believed that determination and hard work, coupled with a passion for learning, are more important. Talent is not enough in a world where our ability to be creative depends on our skills in learning a business, working with other people, raising finance, and marketing.

Even world-famous creative cities like Los Angeles know that creative talent, while vital, is only half the battle. Hollywood succeeds on the scale that it does because people there are inspired to work hard and learn fast. That is their real talent.

This insight helps us to understand why some places flourish creatively and others do not. The reason is people’s attitudes to working and, especially, learning. With creative people, these attitudes emerge at an early age. There is a close correlation between cities and countries where people are well-educated and their high levels of creativity later on.

While everyone has their own ideas about being well-educated, most definitions start with an educational system that encourages young people to use their imagination and ask questions. This will in turn lead to a fuller understanding of core topics such as the arts, humanities, law and media.

A new school in Singapore with a six-year programme for 13-18 year olds encourages this to happen in an unusual way. The School of the Arts (SOTA) integrates academic learning with arts training. Led by Rebecca Chew, it teaches physics through sculpture and applies musical knowledge to maths. It has departments with titles that will seem weird to traditional teachers like the Faculty of Creativity, Action and Service. It even has a Faculty of the Theory of Knowledge which would have flummoxed my old school teachers.

Although they expect some students will become arts professionals, the SOTA staff will be just as pleased if alumni become active members of the community in jobs that have nothing to do with the arts in a professional sense. SOTA wants to promote the arts as a major element in an open society. It wants to “foster a new generation of Singaporeans whose approach to life naturally incorporates artistic perspectives.”

For years, Singapore’s education followed the Asian pattern and relied heavily on worksheets and repetition. This has changed radically in the past few years. The new pre-school curriculum moves away from rote learning to encourage creativity, life-skills and critical thinking. Singapore now scores number three in the World Economy Forum’s global ranking of primary education.

It also rates very high on the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which is the most authoritative standard of all, a sort of Standard & Poor’s rating of education provision, but done purely as a public service. The PISA tables, which include the ability to ‘integrate and interpret’ and to ‘reflect and evaluate’, rank Singapore well above the USA and the OECD average.

The proportion of university graduates among Singapore residents aged 25 to 34 years rose from 24% in 2000 to 47% in 2010, according to the Population Census. This is an extraordinarily high figure.

The government has also taken steps to make Singapore a centre for global learning and research. Its Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE), due to open this autumn at a cost of $360 million, will house seven research centres set up by foreign universities known for their innovation and entrepreneurship including MIT and the University of California at Berkeley. When complete, CREATE will house more than 1,000 researchers.

SOTA and the new research centres are good indicators of how Singapore sees itself. Years ago, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong promoted the principle of ‘Teach Less, Learn More’.

This is because formal education only goes half way to enabling people tomake the most of their creativity. We also need to learn. In a creative economy, learning is as important as education. The difference between them is that whereas education is a top-down process from the one to the many, usually state-funded and state-managed, learning is an individually-driven process in which people take their own decisions about what to learn, when and why. Education stops when people leave school or university but we can learn whenever we want throughout life. Of course, the best schools also stimulate learning but the defining hallmark of a creative person is someone who wants to learn for their own personal enjoyment and benefit, and never wants to stop learning.

This requires an environment (a creative ecology) where learning is respected and has high status. Where the process of discovery is as important as the output. When creative people talk amongst themselves they talk about the process of thinking, making and shaping and they regard the business output as another opportunity to learn. It’s hard to do this on one’s own. People learn best from each other. So if we want to learn we want to work in companies where learning is encouraged.

Education and learning have become major competitive factors between countries that want to attract creative companies. As the USA and Europe are forced to cut their education and training budgets due to their massive public deficits, Singapore’s advantages are certain to increase as the government continues to invest.

Are people born creative or can creativity be nurtured?

• Yes. Creativity is a gift that only certain individuals possess.
• No. Being creative is a skill that can be learnt and developed.
• Both. Some people are born creative but everyone has an ability to think in creative ways.

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