THE Scottish Greens’ education spokesman made a telling point as he called on the Scottish Government to plough more funding into school music tuition.
“Learning a musical instrument cannot be an opportunity only open to those from wealthy families,” Ross Greer said. “From self-esteem to mental health to direct qualifications, the advantages of learning an instrument are absolutely clear, but skyrocketing charges ... are forcing many young people to drop music tuition or not take it up in the first place.”
Holyrood’s education committee has heard many such heartfelt protests. Linlithgow Academy pupil Alice Ferguson says cautions that it is only the “privileged” who now get to learn music in schools, which, she said, was a return to Victorian times. Jeffrey Sharkey, head of the Royal Conservatoire, warns that rising fees are pushing Scotland over a cultural “cliff-edge.”
As The Herald has detailed in recent weeks, there is a crisis surrounding school music tuition fees, with many councils having imposed steep increases last year. Average annual fees for group lessons are around £212 per pupil but in some local-authority areas the charge is as high as £524. And the number of music instructors working in Scottish schools has sunk to an all-time low.
While it is evident that music tuition can be offered for free (as happens in Glasgow), there are tough questions to answer. Is it feasible to continue paying £30 million each year to ensure that all children have a right to instrumental lessons? Would it not be more sensible to to cap fee increases or agree the same fee-level across Scotland? Could more be done to lessen the cost-burden on families whose offspring do not receive free school meals? Is there any wisdom in the suggestion that a national service be created, outwith council control, and thus ending the postcode lottery? Difficult issues, yes, but the very future of Scotland’s cultural life means that they ought to be addressed.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here