Sir, - Gabrielle McCann's welcome letter (January 22nd) raises the matter of the new Leaving Certificate syllabus in music and expresses the hope that the programme will be reviewed "to ensure that it is meeting the needs of all those involved in offering music education, including third-level institutions".
We warmly support this call, as the evidence mediated to us in the third-level sector through incoming students is not encouraging. From student reaction and performance it is evident that the new syllabus brings the student no more than a superficial engagement with the core elements of the subject. While the old syllabus may have been justifiably criticised for its arid academicism, the new would appear to have attempted redress through an overtly populist approach which offers the student little real intellectual or technical challenge. A syllabus which current Leaving Certificate students themselves have been heard to describe as "easy" can hardly be said to satisfy the educational criteria which should inform the design of a comprehensive senior school music teaching and examining syllabus. - Yours, etc.,
Dr Barra Boydell, Dr Patrick Devine, Dr James Garratt, Prof Gerard Gillen, Dr Victor Lazzarini, John O'Keeffe, Martin O'Leary, Department of Music, NUI Maynooth.