Proposals for National Initiatives in Music Education

Submission to the Minister for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, the Hon Peter Garrett MP, and other Ministers

Prepared by Richard Letts
October 26, 2011

This paper takes a throughline from early childhood music education to postgraduate training in the formal education systems and in the less clear parallel universe of community based music education.

There are most serious problems at every level. Teachers at early childhood level receive on average about 10 hours of music education. Primary school teachers receive on average 17 hours of mandatory music education in their undergraduate degrees – say 3 days in 4 years - even though in most states they have the responsibility for delivering music education to seven grade levels. If their job qualification is gained through a postgraduate degree, they receive around half that amount of music education. Extrapolation from MCA research shows that only 23% of state schools offer a competent music education, compared with 88% of independent schools – a most startling inequity.

There is virtually no public tertiary music education institution in Australia that does not incur a financial loss each year even though since the Dawkins ‘reforms’, they have cut the contact hours with students by around 50%. This country’s governments simply do not take music education seriously.

Read the submission