That work is great. I have become involved in an enormous campaign to preserve free musical instrument tuition in Scotland. You mentioned the MEPG, which John Wallace chairs. After he and I first spoke six months ago, we had a few conversations and he asked me, “How are you feeling?” I thought that that was quite an interesting question, because he probably detected that there was an intensity in my involvement. He said, “I’ve been doing this for years and years. I’m glad that you’re frustrated and that you’re showing anger but, believe me, trying to secure the place of music in our curriculum is an enormous task.” We are very fortunate to have the dialogue, but we need to ensure that it converts into some change. If we continue on the current trajectory, I think that I can quote John Wallace in saying that instrumental music services will be gone in a period of years. We need to find a solution to the problem.
It is extremely exasperating to approach a local authority and say, “Please prioritise this”, be told that it is not getting enough money from the Scottish Government and it has to find savings somewhere, then go to the Scottish Government and be told that it is an issue for local authorities to determine as they see fit.
09:45
I use the image of politicians shrugging their shoulders and blaming each other. It is not good enough—this is really important. The backwards-and-forwards blame game is not getting us anywhere so, with all due respect, please find a way to exert your power to change the law. Local authorities and everybody else are up against it—times are tough. If there is an opportunity to lawfully make a cut, local authorities have to consider those opportunities, which is why I ask the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to change the law.
It does not make sense for instrumental music tuition to be separate from the curriculum. Music is a curricular subject—children have to learn music all through primary school and in the first and second years of secondary school, just like maths, English, history and other subjects. That is great. However, if children want to go on to study music in third year and beyond, they need to arrive at that point able to play a musical instrument. They cannot study music seriously and not be competent on a musical instrument. However, if free tuition does not start until third year, that will not happen. We will have a situation in which children who can afford it will get their instrumental music lessons in primary school, which is when they need to start, then, if they arrive in third year with five years of musical instrument tuition under their belt and decide that they want to study music seriously, they will be fine. However, other children will not have that opportunity and that is wrong.
There must be a failure to understand how important to the study of music is the ability to play a musical instrument. If you wanted to learn a foreign language, but had to pay for grammar lessons, that would not make sense. If you wanted to learn biology, but had to pay for hands-on time in the lab, that would not make sense. If you wanted to learn mathematics, but had to pay to be introduced to the concepts of algebra, that would not make sense. It does not make sense to be unable to learn how to play a musical instrument if you want to study music seriously.
Very often, people say, “Can we afford these small group lessons?”. We have afforded them before, and we should not be apologetic about the fact that learning to play a musical instrument is a difficult challenge that is best achieved in small or even one-to-one groups.
A friend of mine in England who retired as a musical instrument teacher after a long career told me that, because he was dyslexic, he spotted 37 students who he thought were dyslexic during his career. He referred them on and they were able to receive specialist support. Because of the close working between teacher and pupil, he spotted something that was not apparent to others. Other teachers have told me that they have received disclosures and confidences from children because of the trust that is created in a small group setting. To lose that would also be wrong.
I hope that local authorities are doing their best to keep fees as low as possible but, if there is a spike in interest rates and a return to a normal level, there will be a clear-out of children learning musical instruments. Is it acceptable to the Scottish Parliament that an increase in interest rates could wipe out an educational service?