Cultural death by a thousand cuts

Is the Schools Music Service worth £600,000 pa?
 
It’s a good question especially when the Island seems to want to save money wherever it can find a soft target.
 
The Education website tells me that the service caters for some 700 pupils, so that’s about £900pa per pupil, assuming of course that the big figure is correct. 

Doesn’t sound very good value for money does it?
 
But what do we get for that money?
 
A music service that’s the envy of every specialist teacher visiting from the UK. A general standard of musicality which is again the envy of those who know about such things. A vibrant Guernsey music scene across all genres.
 
Would we still have these things without a Music Service?
 
Look to the UK where most were scrapped years ago, and where incidentally, they would love to bring them back. How many counties hold Eisteddfods which reach Guernsey levels of skill and professionalism?
 
None!
 
Every year, visiting adjudicators, who work nationally and internationally, tell us that we have a jewel in the crown and should cherish and nurture it.
 
But with only 700 pupils this service is an elitist luxury and anyway, most of the parents can afford to pay for these music lessons so why should the taxpayer?
 
Yes, it is a luxury but if you are just counting pennies, then so are most things. Let’s scrap all of the Arts funding and, while we’re about it, let’s do the same for Sport. If you want to participate then pay for it yourself. In fact let's just close down Culture and Leisure and use the budget elsewhere.
 
We don’t need that many doctors, lawyers, teachers. In fact we could import the few that we do need and save the cost of sending our youngsters off for expensive training. Then there’s all of those useless degrees which we’ll never have need for; let’s stop funding those as well. Tertiary education is elitist so let the parents pay for it or bring in student loans and let the youngsters themselves learn to live with debt early.
 
This is all patently absurd but where do you draw the line?
 
Let’s return to music. What benefits are there in keeping the Service?
 
These 700 students do not live in isolation. They use the skills they are learning to enrich our cultural life. They feed back into their own schools and provide a backbone to their school’s own music making activities. They become better individuals, better team players, and better role models for their peers because music has taught them discipline, how to work as part of a team, and how to become creative.
 
Some will go on in later life to use their skills to teach others and to help generate music making at all levels. Some even go on to become professional musicians.
 
But music is taught in schools. Leave it to the teachers and they’ll do a good job.
 
Yes they will, but music after the basic level is a specialisation and you can’t progress a whole class to become musicians at the same time. You need specialists to teach music and you need specialist musicians to teach specific instruments.
 
But if we can’t afford it then perhaps we should rejoin the third world. Hold on a minute though, Venezuela has a world renown children’s orchestra and their El Systema movement is looked on as a model for development in lots of countries, even Scotland.
 
The third world appreciates the importance of music and don't regard it as elitist. Perhaps we should do the same.