This paper argues that there is a pressing need to discover, develop, and validate a variety of creative skills and aptitudes among students that are too often undervalued in education and training. The immediate concern is with non-advanced further education in the 16-19 age range. Section One describes the changing context of further education. Section Two discusses the importance of creative activities in relation to the changing roles of further education. It considers some of the characteristics of creative activities and the opportunities to promote them across the curriculum. Section Three addresses the arts as a major curriculum area where there has been much successful experience in developing the creativity of young people--an area that has been undervalued in the highly instrumental approaches that characterize much of the further education sector. Section Four considers the implications of the arguments for the further education curriculum and focuses on issues of validation, assessment, and staff development. A bibliography is appended, as well as a list of aims and objectives of a creative development course. (YLB)