Today Holyrood’s Education and Skills Committee published a report on their enquiry into music tuition fees in schools across Scotland.
You can read the Committee’s report, ‘A note of concern: the future of instrumental music tuition in schools’, detailing their recommendations, here.
Catherine Mackie MSYP, Glasgow Southside, attended the report launch (along with her saxophone!) at the Scottish Parliament. She spoke to Clare Adamson MSP, Convener of the Committee, about the benefits of learning an instrument for children and young people.
Catherine gave evidence to the Committee alongside Alice Ferguson MSYP at the beginning of their enquiry.
SYP are pleased that the Committee are looking into this issue, and for allowing young people to meaningfully participate in the inquiry.
We warmly welcome the Committee’s belief that, in principle, music tuition should be provided free of charge in every local authority and appreciates their recommendations to limit the impact in local authorities where charges exist.
However, SYP does still believe that this needs to be seen in practice and that local government should still strive to ensure that music tuition is free to all secondary school pupils in Scotland by 2021. Find our policy on this here.
We also hope that with the incorporation of the UNCRC into Scots Law we will see children and young people’s rights to play and education fully protected and that free music tuition will be shielded from austerity.
SYP welcomes the Committee’s views on music tuition becoming a core part of the curriculum and agree that whilst there are challenges, the benefits in protecting and enhancing the provision of music tuition in schools could far outweigh these considerations. We look forward to hearing how this issue progresses.
Photograph copyright: Scottish Parliament
