For over 600 learners in the Western Cape the 2002 matric results must have been music to their ears. Literally. That’s because the 305 higher grade and 363 standard grade learners all passed their matric music exams – some with honours.
But if music is truly the food of love then thousands of learners countrywide remain chronically undernourished.
As far back as 1996 plans have been underway by the national Department of Education (DoE) to fully integrate arts and culture – music, dance, visual arts and drama – into the curriculum by 2005 as one of the core components of outcomes-based education. Today arts tuition is compulsory up to Grade 9. From grades 10 to 12 it may be chosen as an elective, in accordance with Further Education and Training (FET) guidelines.
Central to this policy is the acknowledgement that a rounded, healthy education results from balancing academic and creative endeavours. In order to reach this integrated goal there have been several well-intentioned initiatives to elevate the status of arts and culture in schools, even those with paltry resources.
Music education in particular seems to be headed for the top of the creative priority list. For example, since 2000 the DoE has attempted to unite previously fragmented school music events countrywide. The choral jewel in the DoE’s crown is the annual Tirisano Schools Choral Eisteddfod – the biggest competition of its kind in the country. But funding remains an ongoing problem for the choirs of under-resourced schools. If these school choirs do well in competitions they find themselves financially burdened by the travel costs incurred to participate in the final rounds of choral competitions, which are often held in major city centres.
While the rallying cry to take art and culture to the classrooms certainly remains as vocal as ever, the creative vision has become clouded by some of the more mundane realities of post-apartheid education. These include teacher redeployment and rationalisation, chronic shortages in specialised teachers and ongoing struggles to balance the books. The DoE plan was to train enough teachers so that all learners would have access to at least one arts subject every year. But while classrooms are still short of windows, textbooks and teachers, culture in the classroom cannot make much more than a guest appearance. Particularly in the rationalisation process, art and music teachers have been the first to go.
And despite eloquent policy documents and the general hype and hooplah around creativity in the classroom, in many respects arts and culture in general, and music in particular, are treated like the poor cousins of the mainstream academic family. According to many practitioners in the Western Cape, for example, arts and culture teachers often find themselves marginalised. In most cases it is up to them to requisition funds for materials from limited school budgets. The other source of discouragement is the lack of space in which to conduct classes and – in the case of the visual arts – to store work in progress.
In the case of music, although it has long been entrenched in disadvantaged schools as an extramural activity, to date no former Department of Education and Training (DET) schools in the Western Cape are able to offer it as a subject. The converse is the case at private and former model C schools which are often able to offer more than choral music programmes to their students. Many of these schools have music as a subject, complete with instruments and specialist tutors.
‘Music is a highly specialised subject, ‘ explains Franklin Lewis who is in charge of project management and policy interpretation for the Western Cape Education Department. ‘The major challenge is to find ways of training aspirant music teachers and encouraging specialist educators at affluent schools to teach at disadvantaged schools.”
Lewis mentions the importance of developing educator programmes in music, particularly African genres, in order to adequately prepare teachers for the new FET. ‘The plan is to re-skill teachers trained in western music to deal with African styles. One such workshop will take place at Artscape in March this year.”
While these are certainly signs of commitment to making arts and culture come to life at schools, there is a mountain to climb before the ideal can be realised.
‘The DoE’s vision is tantamount to talking about introducing brain surgery into the classroom when there aren’t even enough qualified general practitioners around,” says educationist Nikki Aranes. ‘Education authorities say it’s up to the school principals to assert their needs; but schools say it’s up to the department to ensure the equitable redistribution of creative resources. ‘In a sense what’s happening in the education system is a microcosm of the difficulties facing arts and culture in general, with NGOs struggling for funding, artists, musicians, dancers, performers of all kinds being ignored, exploited or not treated seriously enough as professionals. A fundamental shift in perception must begin at school level.
Arts education faces many challenges in South Africa, but none greater than this.”