A similar program in the Netherlands once ran for decades. It produced about quarter a million uh, tangible units of art, which not even government institutions wanted anymore, not even for free. The warehouses became full and dusty.
This was later one of the motivations to cancel the program.
BTW credentialism - good or bad? It certainly seems to me that the idea of credentials has crept from medicine, law and engineering into formerly freer and more bohemian territories. An idea of a perepiska for singers or actors would be considered absurd by most people in history. But once money transfers are in place, bureaucracy inevitably follows.
Some accreditations are strong. Others are nearly useless.
Reputation is easily hacked these days. Letters of recommendation don't mean what they used to. Something needs to fill that space - especially when you're filtering down to 2,000 applicants in a country of 5 million people.
Sure, there's a lot of dodgy doctors and lawyers out there. No shortage whatsoever, despite the efforts towards strict credentials. But I'd still rather have someone with a medical degree fixing my broken leg than a random chirurgeon.
We should probably discriminate between the sort of credentials that is meant to prevent harm to unsuspecting clients, and the sort of credentials that serves as a basis for various privileges.
The latter is quite a bit closer to the old feudal system of professional guilds, which were mostly concerned with defending the interests of their own members.
This was later one of the motivations to cancel the program.