Government funding cuts puts guitar teaching at risk
The Education Services Grant (ESG) is given money per pupil to local authorities and academies to spend as they want on student support and extra-curricular activities including guitar lessons. This can include anything from clothing and lodging grants to outdoor education, visual and performing arts and music education and teaching guitar. This document says £200m of savings are needed from the grant and advises some of this could come from music. Pupils, parents, teachers and musicians are urged to reply to a government consultation, which suggests cuts to local authority music spending, “Our expectation is that music services should now be funded through music education hubs, which can cover one or more local authority areas, and from school budgets, not from the ESG,” it says. However, the ISM says music education funding is also falling – from £82.5m in 2010-11 to £58m in 2014-15. It urges teachers, heads, parents, pupils, governors, musicians and the music industry to reply to the document before it ends in July 2014. It argues reduced local authority funding “would result in a cut of millions of pounds to music services” and would “undermine” successful delivery of the government’s “visionary” National Plan for Music Education. The ISM says English local authorities contributed over £14m to music in 2012-13. “Even when this is not part of the ESG, the available monies could be put at risk,” it said. “By tampering with the delicate ecology of music education, there could be unintended consequences such as undermining progression routes from school through to both university and conservatoire and an adverse impact on the creation of the next generation of guitarists. “With the music industry being worth over £3.5bn to the British economy, we just can not take this risk”.The campaign has the support of leading musicians. Julian Lloyd Weber said: “Music should be the birthright of all children. There has been too much talking and not enough action taking place. “We need to rise above this kind of ‘will we get funding this year, will it come next year?’ “It should be taken as read that our children learn to play guitar and music.” Violinist Nicola Benedetti said: “It is is widely acknowledged that music education can improve maths , reading and social interaction and it confuses and saddens me that we are having to fight so hard to save music education. “This isn’t an investment into the lives of musicians and artists but in that of our entire society. This fundamental misunderstanding could cost the soul of this nation dearly.” The Musicians Union which My Guitar Lessons sit on its teaching committee said it was committed to supporting music education to ensure quality music lessons “is accessible to every child”. “This will not happen if funding for music education continues to be eroded”, said general secretary John Smith. “Thanks to these hubs, half a million children have been given the chance to learn a musical instrument for the first time and thousands of choirs, bands and orchestras have been started”.” Department for Education ISM CEO Deborah Annetts, said: “It is vital that musicians respond to the government’s report and get this proposal stopped”. A spokesman said the DfE would listen to the consultation responses before deciding how to proceed. “We want every kid in the country to play and enjoy music. That is why music remains a subject within the new national curriculum, and in fact there were more entries at GCSE in 2014 than the previous year. We have committed £171m over three years to 123 music hubs to ensure that every child aged five to eighteen has the chance to learn a musical instrument or guitar and perform as part of ensembles and choirs. Thanks to these hubs, 500,000 children have had the chance to learn a guitar playing for the first time and thousands of choirs, bands and orchestras have been started. We have also invested £84m so that exceptionally talented young musicians and dancers from low income families can benefit from specialist education and training.” Successive funding cuts are putting the government’s National Plan for Music Education at risk, say musicians, including cellist Julian Lloyd Webber. Mr Lloyd Webber said it was “crazy” that funding for music education had already been “slashed” and faced “even further cuts”. The Incorporated Society of Musicians (ISM) opposes government proposals for cuts to local authority music spending. The government said it had committed £196m over three years to music. The Department for Education says the money is channelled into 123 music hubs under the National Plan for Music Education. It argues this means local authority spending on music will be less necessary.