The president of the Dublin Institute of Technology, Dr Brendan Goldsmith, yesterday described the creation of an Irish Academy for the Performing Arts as a "flawed policy" and applauded the Government's recent decision to stand down the project. He called for music education to be "fully integrated into the broader curriculum".
Dr Goldsmith said that there was now an urgent need for a comprehensive policy in relation to education for the performing arts. He has written to the Minister for Education and Science and to the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism proposing a meeting between the major providers of music performance tuition "to develop an informed and coherent policy on this important issue".
His statement was issued a day after the Labour TD, Mr Seán Ryan, raised a question in the Dáil about cuts and fee increases planned at the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama.
These, said Mr Ryan, included "a possible cut of 150 hours out of 300 teaching hours per week across the part-time area, the cancelling of pre-instrumental and junior workshop classes, affecting up to 100 students, the reduction of the duration of musicianship classes from one hour to 45 minutes and the possible 100 per cent increase in part-time student fees from €353 to €706".
A spokesman for the Dublin colleges branch of the TUI, which represents teaching staff at the DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama, said: "We have no principled objection to a review. If such a review were to take place, the staff of the various providers should be asked for an input into it. And the DIT should not be reducing its service in the interim. It should wait until such a review takes place."
A DIT lecturer, who wished to remain anonymous, said that the proposed cuts "amounted to cultural vandalism".
Dr Goldsmith said the issue of music in the DIT was a complex question. He added: "DIT is anxious to maintain the teaching of music. With regard to teaching at first and second level, it's not at all clear that DIT receives any or at least adequate resources to do this.
"There really is a problem about the provision of music education. It is not about whether DIT does it or doesn't do it. It's about whether it's done in the best possible way."
