A radical revamp of music education at local level is called for in a report launched yesterday. The establishment of a National Music Education Council and a network of Local Music Education Service Partnerships are among the recommendations of a feasibility study carried out by Music Network into the creation of a nationwide system of local music education services.
The report, which was funded by the Minister for Arts, collates existing data on the state of music education in Ireland.
It reveals that just 0.2 per cent of Irish people under 25 have access to vocal or instrumental tuition, compared to 1.5 per cent in Belgium, 3.4 per cent in Slovenia, 9 per cent in Denmark, and 12.2 per cent in Sweden.
A study by the European Music Schools Union found that, on a comparative basis, Belgium had 93 music schools to Ireland's 12, Finland 140 and Denmark 234.
The report, said the chairman of its advisory group, Mr Martin Drury, is "prescriptive and not diagnostic". Its vision is the creation of "a twin-engined service," involving curriculum support in primary and secondary schools, and the provision of a new instrumental and vocal tuition service at local level.
The proposed National Music Education Council would provide quality assurance and be responsible for the assessment of the new system.
The local partnerships, which would deal in traditional, classical and popular music, would draw together existing resources from VECs, regional education centres, local authorities, and primary and secondary schools.
The current educational system in Ireland, said Mr Drury, had "an aesthetic and artistic deficit," leaving the State in dereliction of its declared responsibility "to educate the whole child".
The proposals, which would take 15 or more years to implement, would create a locally flexible service that involved "the kind of joined-up thinking Government is asking us to do".
With the proposed Irish Academy for the Performing Arts removed from the political agenda, he said, "some of the impulse and political will" that drove it "could be invested in the new proposals".
He called on anyone sympathetic to the vision of the report "to lobby, cajole and agitate" for its implementation.
Broadcaster Miriam O'Callaghan, who formally launched the document, declared with passion that "music education is not a privilege, not a luxury, but a fundamental right".