The OECD's review of Irish higher education, which it published last month, relied on a background briefing document by John Coolahan, outgoing professor of education at NUI Maynooth, but its recommendations replicate, in many instances, suggestions published by Danny O'Hare, a former president of Dublin City University, writes Richard Pine

There is an incalculable gap between Coolahan's deeply held views on the integrity of the education system and O'Hare's consistently expressed determination to promote research and development in science and technology at the expense of the humanities. The humanities, including music (with which I am primarily concerned), suffer from this gap. As O'Hare so diplomatically put it in this newspaper last month, "what is needed is for the arts dimension to move over and give due space to science and technology".

This is ironic, given that in 2000 the Government charged O'Hare with putting together the constituent elements of an Irish academy of performing arts, a concept initially proposed by John O'Conor, director of the Royal Irish Academy of Music, which came to nothing because of political hijacking. The establishment of an effective performing-arts academy remains the single most important task in the transformation of music education, but it is caught in the gap between what C. P. Snow called the two cultures: the mutual ignorance of the arts and the sciences.

The OECD review says that Ireland is at a crossroads, but as far as music is concerned we have been waiting at that crossroads for decades. The review tells us nothing we didn't already know, but its silence on the humanities in general underlines the fact that third-level music is at risk because it is within the system but not a part of it.

Yet, ironically, in most of the areas the OECD investigators were concerned with, third-level activity at colleges such as the Royal Irish Academy of Music exceeds international targets in quality assurance, accountability, evaluation, staff-student ratios and the range and depth of learning and teaching. If performance (no pun intended) is the determinant of success, third-level musicians already outperform their opposite numbers in science and technology. This is no reason to push them aside, yet it appears they will not be rewarded for their achievements.

But why should we worry? Perhaps because the Irish are considered to be innately musical, it has never been considered necessary to put in place a policy for music education and a system to sustain it. Of course we need resources (not merely money but people, too), but, much more importantly, we need a clear vision of a pyramid based on local teaching services (such as those proposed last year by Music Network) and moving up through primary, secondary and third level to a national conservatoire at its peak.

This means respecting the continuity of music education: when 18-year-olds enter college to start dentistry, they will have had no prior experience. But students starting BAs in music performance may have had up to 15 years' training in their instruments and will have passed strenuous auditions that are far more competitive than the entrance requirements of almost any other third-level course.

For the needs of music education to be appreciated several related factors need to be assessed: apart from classes in music theory, almost all teaching is one to one, with a consequently crucial relationship in which the teacher often becomes the student's musical "parent"; a very large proportion of teachers are part time, principally because, as at the academy of music, they are section leaders of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra or the RTÉ Concert Orchestra; many teachers at this level are therefore also top performers, which is not always the case with university professors; full-time teachers at the academy of music teach one to one for 22 hours a week (16 at Dublin Institute of Technology), which is far more than most university professors.

The OECD review will be particularly worrying for those with a vested interest in the arts, such as John Ennis, head of humanities at Waterford Institute of Technology, who are already vocal in their attempt to resist O'Hare's momentum and retain a central place in Irish education. There is a strong suspicion in the south-east's music community that Waterford will lose not only its recently threatened junior music school but also its third-level component, and it is hard not to believe a remark attributed to Redmond O'Donoghue, chairman of the institute's governing body. "Cork will get music and we'll get nursing" - a done deal if ever there was one.

Similarly, in May of this year John O'Conor revealed that he had gone so far as to agree a draft memorandum of understanding with Dublin Institute of Technology about a merger between the academy and DIT's music faculty, which has had its own problems in recent times.

O'Conor's passionate advocacy of a national conservatoire is much respected, and his obvious anxiety to set wheels in motion is entirely understandable. But many on the governing body felt that this solo run was ultra vires, and many of his staff believe that this example of "rationalisation" is another done deal that will lead to redundancies and a drop in standards. It is this concern for standards that must remain the chief reason for questioning any blind espousal of rationalisation.

This proposed merger indicates that many colleges, such as Trinity and University College Dublin, have anticipated the tenor if not the precise wording of the OECD review by starting to put rationalisation processes in motion before the Government tells them to do so. One of the most crucial steps is to form strategic partnerships so that, in the case of music, for example, critical mass can be achieved for a national training orchestra - here, the envisioned link between the academy of music, DIT and RTÉ, the obvious stakeholder, would be a quantum leap in the training of a skilled workforce, however small in numbers.

Following the collapse of talks on a performing-arts academy, the Royal Irish Academy of Music did attempt an institutional link with Dublin City University that foundered on the university's internal politics: perhaps the OECD will effect a kick up the transom that will remove such blockages in institutional thinking and facilitate the leap across the gap that is so badly needed.

The way forward, in Coolahan's words, requires "political sophistication, commitment of stakeholders, monitoring processes, and a climate of partnership, trust and goodwill . . . continuity, consistency and sustainability of policy approaches". As far as the future of third-level music is concerned, none of these is on the political map.

Twelve third-level colleges currently award degrees in music (whether theory, composition or performance), of which only one, the academy, is independent of State control and is not a department of another institution. The academy is, in fact, the only college in a position to initiate change management in music education. It should take that initiative and propose a new structure that respects and fosters all levels within the one system and provides the critical mass to raise standards that are already international.

Richard Pine is academic director of the Durrell School of Corfu and a governor of the Royal Irish Academy of Music