News summary: Children have nothing to do with free museums and opposition has effects of austerity calculated

Opposition: get arts cuts calculated

(...) It involves cuts by the state, provinces and municipalities. The aim is to clarify how big the total cuts together are and what exactly will be the effects on supply and employment. (..)
"With this request, we want to counter the politics of the short-term agenda. Good policy, including austerity policy, takes into account long-term effects." The government is cutting back heavily on arts and culture. This includes cuts in cultural subsidies, the VAT increase, the abolition of the cultural investment scheme and the abolition of the separate income scheme for artists (WWIK). (...)
The initiators ask CPB and SCP to provide insight into the impact of the various measures on government revenues.
"I fear this government is setting itself up for irreparable damage to the cultural climate with the arts cuts," Peters analyses. "Once demolished, you don't rebuild that quickly. If talent development and experimentation go under, top artists and top companies leave for abroad and patrons do not come over the bridge, you dupe at least an entire cultural generation."

Source: The Gelderlander   14 Nov 11

Two-thirds of school classes visit museum

(...) The study was to show how more children could be attracted to museums and was carried out in response to former Culture Minister Ronald Plasterk's desire to make museums free for children. This plan fell through when it turned out that this comes with a price tag of 9 million euros and that it is very uncertain whether substantially more children will visit museums with free admission.
The survey results show once again that free admission and also free transport do not play a decisive role in the choice to visit a museum. (..)

Source: The Telegraph   14 Nov 11

The entire study is available via this link read