However, the research results reveal that the children have high creativity when they are in
kindergarten, but their creativity decrease gradually after they study higher and higher. Sir
Ken Robinson, chair of the UK Government’s report on creativity, education and the
economy, stated that “young people lost their ability to think in ‘divergent or non-linear
ways’, a key component of creativity. Of 1,600 children aged three to five who were tested,
98% showed they could think in divergent ways. By the time they were aged eight to 10, 32%
could think divergently. When the same test was applied to 13 to 15-year-olds, only 10%
could think in this way. When the test was used with 200,000 students who were 25-yearolds,
only 2% could think divergently. . . . (1998) Education is driven by the idea of one
answer and this idea of divergent thinking becomes stifled. He described creativity as the
‘genetic code’ of education and said it was essential for the new economic circumstances of
the 21st century.” (TESS, 25 March 2005; Buie, 2005)