1,108 hours is given in total to instruction in other subjects. Clearly, it is understood that for them 17 hours is not enough to produce a competent teacher.

To offer only this amount of music instruction is some sort of charade. What are we pretending that these people will be able to teach? For seven primary school years? What can be the purpose other than to tick a box? I ask these question while knowing that there are university lecturers who use great ingenuity in bringing something worthwhile to their students — but the situation is not fair for them either.

There are studies showing that the effect on the students of so little music instruction can be to convince them of their own incompetence and rob them of any confidence, however unjustifiable, they might have had in introducing music activities in class. Without confidence, they may be inclined to quietly omit music, even where as in NSW, it is a mandatory part of the curriculum.

A solution, as is apparent from the study, is for the accreditation bodies to insist upon an adequate level of competence in music and music teaching as a condition of accreditation and therefore employment.

A more credible solution is to employ music specialists to teach music in primary schools, preferably in collaboration with well-prepared classroom teachers.

Unfortunately i think we are up against a huge cultural wall where singing and music isn’t really seen as being important in our culture.

To get the funding needed to compare with the Finnish and Venezuelen systems or for it to become a key component of the National Curriculum we need a real change in how Australians view music and it’s importance.

It is also an immensely complicated topic; however, lucky for us there are some excellent examples of successful systems throughout the world which we really should be examining before leaping into conclusions as to how we might deliver such things. It behoves us to do the research before we all form some sort of conclusion as to what we best could deliver in schools or in our communities – and that goes for all the Arts.

I am sure that Dick can provide a wealth of information here in the music sphere, and there are links such as this one which although annoyingly brief, do shed light on such systems:

- http://www.artistshousemusic.org/videos/overview+of+music+education+in+finland

and:

http://www.musiikkioppilaitokset.org/index.php?mid=441

Interestingly Timo Klemettinen, the Managing Director, Association of Finnish Music Schools, states from the outset, that their initial problem was lack of trained music teachers, so their very first action was to spend time developing those resources which took a while before they could then deploy them. So clearly this will probably be our goal too here in Australia.

There are other countries who have tackled this problem too and have been immensely successful – for example, Venezuela’s El Sistema has over 350,000 children engaged in music instrument and choral education programs across the country, through the development of a well funded nationally based youth and children’s orchestral and choral music program. Over a million children have been involved in the Venezuelan system and it has produced some outstanding social and musical results. See: http://www.fesnojiv.gob.ve/en/el-sistema. Like the Finnish system, they based it on on regional music centres outside the school times rather than a school-time centric solution.

The key to everything in this is funding. Without proper funding the entire possibility for real music education will be severely limited. It was one of the key factors in both the Finnish and Venezuelan systems and will be for us too. We too need this to be made very clear from the outset.

My personal view is that we take a very gradual approach to the development of music education in the National Curriculum, develop our resources and structures as we go. Also that we utilise every music resource we can take advantage of – which includes, regional conservatoriums of music, organisations such as Music Viva, The Australian Children’s Music Foundation, The Song Room, education outreach programs offered by our state orchestras, and independent orchestras. university schools of music and conservertories, and any other private worthwhile and qualified music centres offering music instruction and education… not to forget the many hundreds of private music teachers around the country who might well be the solution in themselves!

Check this out! It’s a blueprint for arts legislation using external resources – licenced “education providers”:

http://www.musiikkioppilaitokset.org/easydata/customers/sml/files/TPOtaiteet/Laki_taiteen_perusopetuksesta_21.eng1.pdf

I also believe that an instrument and choral system in tandem are critical and music standards be based around the Australian Music Examinations Board (AMEB) mechanisms both in theory and individual instrument performance – this will make it as straight forward as possible as it is already an established mechanism for education standards and levels.

Also – technology. We need to take advantage of the new Broadband network, so we can deliver good music education to remote schools and communities as though they were in the same room and city as the offering. With high bandwidth systems, full digital videoconferencing and training courses can be delivered wonderfully across our wide brown land. It will make it far more reasonable for a school to offer multiple arts education – rather than having to pick and choose which arts subject they can manage. If someone can place the entire Australian High School Maths syllabus online (http://www.mathsonline.com.au/) we can do the same with music theory – at all levels. And that will directly address the lack of teaching resourcing.

So really there is much to think about and discuss in this topic – long before we have the debate about, “which arts?”

My two-penneth.