Sound of Silence: The End of Music in Schools?

Music education in the UK is in a perilous place, with the largest cuts in spending per pupil for 40 years, falling teacher recruitment numbers, and huge drops in GCSE and A-Level uptake. With a new National Plan for Music Education imminent, will it be enough to ensure music matters? Jude Rogers talks to Chrissy Kinsella, Chief Executive of the London Music Fund, about transforming under-served communities, if learning tunes are really less important than science and tech for career prospects, and why some people still think music is more a luxury than a necessity.

• “Classical music will always be full of elite, old, white people unless we change it.” 
• “The problem always is and always will be funding.”
• “Wouldn't it be amazing if every primary school had a music teacher?”
• “We often focus on academic attainment, but we should also be celebrating music for the joy of music.”
• “There's such a lack of joined up thinking from central government.”

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Written and presented by Jude Rogers. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Lead Producer: Jacob Jarvis Producers: Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Audio production by Jade Bailey THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production

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