Mr Patsy McGlone (Mid Ulster): To ask the Minister of Education to detail any steps his Department is taking to ensure that music education is accessible and well-supported in schools, particularly in light of recent challenges to arts funding.
Minister of Education: Music education is an important aspect of school life for our children and young people. It is covered under ‘The Arts’ area of learning and is a compulsory element of the Northern Ireland Curriculum at both primary and post-primary levels.
To support schools in the delivery of music education, the Education Authority (EA), operates a Music Service which enables learners from all backgrounds to receive musical education of the highest quality.
The EA’s Music Service offers access to music education in schools through both school-based tuition and larger performance opportunities in orchestras. Access to quality music education, through an inclusive approach to service provision, is fundamental to the operation of the Music Service, based on the principle that every young person deserves the opportunity to experience the transformative power of music.
In terms of funding issues more generally, education has been and remains significantly underfunded here in Northern Ireland. This is independently evidenced by not only the Institute for Fiscal Studies in its last two comparisons papers on school spending per pupil across the United Kingdom, but more recently the Independent Review of Education’s report, Investing in a Better Future. Education is key to the future economic stability of our society, and we cannot afford to continue to neglect it through years of underfunding.
ENDS
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