Children & the Arts

Created on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 3:55 pm. Related to General

From the column “Music on a Thursday” written by Julian Lloyd Webber for the Daily Telegraph.

Thursday March 6th 2008

 “Every child, whatever his or her circumstances, should have the chance to experience the artistic excellence of our cultural heritage, the very best of dance, theatre, opera and music our museums and galleries, art and literature”

 You would be forgiven for thinking that this must be a quote from the latest Culture Secretary, Andy Burnham, announcing the latest government initiative of “five hours of culture a week” for school children. But in fact these worthy sentiments were being expressed as long ago as 2004 by Prince Charles when he celebrated the first anniversary of his Arts & Kids scheme.

 While all of the (not uniformly complimentary) headlines were garbled by politicians, The Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts-as it is now known-has been quietly beavering way, doing just what the government ordered. Which makes it strange that the first thing the Foundation knew about the Government’s announcement was when Andy Burnham started giving the obligatory round of interviews.

 You might imagine that an organisation with considerable expertise n doing exactly what the government was proposing would have been consulted. The fact that it wasn’t tends to reinforce a growing impression that-despite lots of good intentions from on high-the dots remain obstinately unjoined.

 This is a topic I will return to next month when I try to unravel the mystery of why so many music graduates pour out of our music colleges with teaching diplomas keep complaining that their is not enough work for them yet, at the same time, we are constantly told that they are not enough music teachers to go around the schools.