The UK government has come under pressure from supporters as well as critics to ensure that investment is made in the arts and the teaching of music in schools in England.
It follows the Labour Party accusing them of "stifling children's creativity and damaging the talent pipeline"for Britain's creative industries by failing to provide proper arts and culture education.
Drop
Speaking at a recent arts education panel at the Theatre and Touring Summit in London, Labour's shadow arts minister, Barbara Keeley, highlighted the drop in the number of students taking arts GCSEs, which has fallen by 40% since 2010 — with 12,000 fewer students taking music (a 27% reduction).
It was argued that the lack of investment in arts subjects was leading to low morale among teachers and a drop in overall arts provision. Barbara Keeley stated that Labour would pledge to put the creative and cultural sectors at the heart of its mission to grow the economy.
It was stated that the number of drama teachers in state-funded secondary schools in England had also fallen by 22% since 2011, and that there had been a 15% decline in the number of music teachers and a 12% decline in the number of art and design teachers over the same period.
Orchestral instrument access
Meanwhile, the composer and musical theatre impresario Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber has urged the government to support schemes that could give all school children access to an orchestral instrument. He highlighted a recent study that found that only 12% of state schools, in contrast to 85% of private schools, had an orchestra.
Lloyd Webber was created a Conservative peer in 1997, although he retired from the House of Lords in 2017.
Times article
He gave his opinion following an article written in The Times newspaper by Dame Kathryn McDowall, managing director of the London Symphony Orchestra, who stressed that orchestras were at risk of losing future talent, because state school children are not routinely being given the opportunity to learn a musical instrument.
He has since urged the government that they should consider supporting schemes such as 'The Music in Secondary Schools Trust' (MiSST), supported by his own foundation, which costs £200 per child a year and promises "every child an entitlement to study a classical musical instrument on entry into secondary school".
What music does isn't about necessarily trying to make the children musicians. But what it does, is it really helps them as peopleLord Lloyd Webber
LBC interview
In an interview for the Nick Ferrari LBC radio show he said, "What music does isn't about necessarily trying to make the children musicians. But what it does, is it really helps them as people. It improves your self-awareness, if you're playing in an orchestra you become a team player."
In June 2022 the government announced it would be investing £25 million for schools to purchase musical instruments and equipment as well as being asked to offer at least one hour of music curriculum a week as part of the launch of a new National Plan for Music Education.
It was recently announced that from September 2024 that the number of Music Hubs in England will reduce from 116 to 43.
