Music Monday - A Health Report on Music Education

It has been 15 years since the National Review of School Music Education (2005) and it is timely that a new  Report has been published: Music Education A Sound Investment by Dr Anita Collins, Dr Rachel Dwyer and Aden Date. The Report was commissioned by The Tony Foundation “to inform their vision to use music to achieve improved life outcomes for young people”.

Like the National Review of School Music Education, this report finds:

The problem: a large proportion of Australian primary school children have little or no access to music education.

The Report outlines the benefits of music education and  best [practice in the field. 

The following factors and issues were identified by the project team as the key barriers to the provision of a quality music education to all Australian primary school children:

Arts Educators would not be surprised by these findings. Nor by the State-by-State report on approaches to music education.

The question for arts educators must be what to do with the findings of the Report. 

Thanks to Music Australia <marketing@musicaustralia.org.au> for alerting us to this important report. 

Bibliography

Pascoe, R., S. Leong, J. MacCallum, E. MacKinley, K. Marsh, B. Smith, T. Church and A. Winterton (2005). Augmenting the Diminished: National Review of School Music Education. Canberra, Australian Government Department of Education, Science and Training.