Music in Early Childhood Education

Submission to the Commonwealth Inquiry for a National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care

Dr Peter de Vries
October 2008

The Music Council of Australia has taken a very strong interest in issues concerning music education and was partly responsible forthe instigation of the Commonwealth's National Review of School Music Education of 2005 and developments since.

On September 5, the Council produced a summit for the music sector, Australian Musical Futures: Towards 2020. 100 leaders from the sector met for a full day of discussion. Among the highest priorities in its report was this recommendation:

Music training should be a requirement for all early childhood teachers and provision of such training should be added to the objectives following from the National Review of School Music Education.

This submission focuses on the provision of music in early childhood education in Australia. The submission provides:

• Background about the current provision of music education in Australian early childhood education settings.
• A rationale for the inclusion of music in early childhood education programs.
• A brief outline of what quality musical experiences for children in early childhood settings might look like.
• Two core recommendations for improving the provision of music education in early childhood education.

The Music Council believes there is a simple solution to bringing to young children the great benefits following on from development of their musical (and consequently, other) abilities: provide a sufficient training in music and music teaching to all early childhood teachers. Teachers equipped with those skills would be bound to bring them to the children because both teacher and children love and benefit from music making.

There are no additional financial implications. Unlike the situation for primary and secondary schools, there are no additional costs ininclusion of a music program in the daily life of the early childhood centre.

View the submission