“Through a glass darkly” : a report on trends in school music education provision in Australia

This paper reports on research commissioned by the Music Council of Australia (MCA) on the provision of school music education in Australian states and territories. Using guidelines developed by the principal researcher, a team of state and territory investigators collected data on eleven research questions formulated by MCA’s Research Committee. The principal investigator compiled, analysed and interpreted the state data and synthesised the findings into an overview of
the current situation nationally. One of the major findings was the limited amount of uniform data available from education authorities; indeed, the inadequacy or non-availability of data from some states is a matter of serious concern in terms of public accountability for the school music provision. Nevertheless, the project provided an overview of the current state of school music education in all states and territories. In relation to three of the key indicators (numbers of specialist music teachers, numbers of students taught music, and numbers of students studying music at Year 12), the study revealed that the provision of music has not changed significantly over the past two decades—the situation has either remained static or has improved or declined slightly. The principal recommendation from the project is the need for a more comprehensive survey to be undertaken and a Deakin University team, in collaboration with the MCA as industry partner, will be applying for an ARC Linkage Grant which will investigate effective teaching of music in schools and the preparation of teachers for implementing music programs.