Chongqing - In the 2025 Spring Festival movie season, "Ne Zha 2", a Chinese animated film, topped the global box office for animated movies. Around the same time, the artificial intelligence system DeepSeek amazed the world with its creative capabilities.
According to Jiao Xingtao, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and president of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, these two phenomena are closely tied to innovation and creativity.
"Art education is a vital pathway to inspire and nurture creativity," Jiao emphasized.
Jiao Xingtao is a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and president of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. (Photo/The interviewee)
Jiao shared that many fields today require a large number of innovative talents who possess rich imagination, keen insight, and the courage to break through barriers and solve problems.
In 2015, the General Office of the State Council issued opinions on comprehensively strengthening and improving school aesthetic education, which, for the first time, listed "stimulating imagination and innovative awareness" as the core mission of aesthetic education. This marked the official recognition of creativity education as a key focus of national education reform. Over the past year, Jiao's work has consistently revolved around the themes of "innovation" and "creativity."
Through research and visits, Jiao identified several bottlenecks in implementing creativity education within China's current aesthetic education system. These include neglect of creativity cultivation, an underdeveloped teaching system for creativity, and insufficient integration of art and technology.
To address these issues, Jiao proposed that relevant regulations explicitly highlight the proportion of aesthetic education courses emphasizing creativity.
He suggested that authorities organize experts from art, technology, engineering, mathematics, and psychology to reconstruct the aesthetic education curriculum system, drawing on the international "STEAM" concept (an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics).
Additionally, he advocated for interdisciplinary and cross-institutional collaborations between universities, such as combining "new engineering" with "new art" disciplines, to prepare professionals and resources for China's STEAM education.
"In September this year, the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute and Chengdu University of Electronic Science and Technology will jointly launch the nation's first 'Art + Electronic Information' dual-degree program," Jiao said.
This program aims to cultivate innovative talents who master core technologies like electronic information and artificial intelligence while possessing artistic creativity, aesthetic judgment, and creative thinking.
"Creativity education is the soul of aesthetic education and the cornerstone of building a technologically powerful nation," Jiao added. He believes that only by transforming artistic perception into innovative drive can we cultivate future "game-changers" who will inject endless momentum into the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
Reflecting on his experience as a CPPCC member, Jiao emphasized the importance of adopting new perspectives to address issues.
He noted that CPPCC members bear a glorious mission to observe national economic development and social progress from both a national and global standpoint. When tackling specific problems, they must constantly shift between public welfare and governmental perspectives.
"Only by approaching problems with this new perspective can we achieve a systematic and comprehensive understanding, which is the foundation for improving and solving all problems," Jiao said.