Sir, - £700,000 for school music! (Janet R. Ashe, December 8th). Are your readers - and the organisers of Messiah XXI - aware that the Department of Education and Science set out regulations in 1977 for funding school music? They provide a maintenance grant of £3.00 per instrument and a capital grant of £75 for an existing orchestra. To set up an orchestra in a school, the DES will grant 6225. Bonuses for taking part in the recognised orchestra and choir exams range from £10 for a junior choir to 645 for a senior orchestra.
Read those figures again. They are taken from an official form M74/77. - Yours, etc.,
Christopher Kinder, Chair, Post-primary Music Teachers' Association, Beech Park, Lucan, Co Dublin.