Provision of music education in the Western Cape through focus schools for the arts

Abstract

The enrolment of music in especially the secondary school is declining in many countries such as South Africa, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Brazil, China, Finland, Israel, Korea, Mexico and the United States of America. This decline in the number of learners doing the subject in secondary school, despite its popularity outside of the school, is often ascribed to the socio-economic context and the level of difficulty of the subject, but most of all due to a music curriculum that is in stark contrast to what learners are doing in their daily lives. Post-Apartheid education focused on the redress of education by working towards the provision of quality education through the improvement of educational resources, wider subject choices for previously disadvantaged learners and transforming the national curriculum to suit the needs of young people to prepare them adequately and appropriately for tertiary education and the world of work. The demands of poor communities for greater access to subjects that were previously denied to them, compelled the national education department to introduce subjects such as the arts and technology in secondary schools located in low socio-economic areas where these subjects have not been offered before. The Western Cape Education Department, as lead agent for the province’s Human Capital Development Strategy (HCDS), established ten dedicated focus schools for the arts that would become centres of excellence to provide quality arts education to secondary school learners from poor urban and rural areas. It was envisaged that these arts institutions would be equipped with the appropriate infrastructure, technology, teaching and learning support materials and qualified arts teachers to ensure that music, dance, drama, design and visual arts would be accessible to a broader spectrum of secondary school learners. The aim of the study focused on the provision of music education at these institutions by investigating the essential aspects of the focus school phenomenon such as infrastructure that was built to create a conducive environment for music education, curricular and extra-curricular music programmes, learner enrolment and retention, use of technology, teaching and learning support materials and teacher effectiveness. The study has a qualitative research approach and is based on a case study design that served to provide a rich and in-depth description of the phenomenon. The data was collected by means of focus group and individual interviews as well as observations of lessons, extra-mural activities and music performances. An interrogation of government policies and school records also informed the research to provide trustworthy findings. After each finding, some suggestions are made concerning the alleviation of challenges which focus schools face regarding the delivery of Music in the FET phase. Finally, the study makes recommendations for future research related to the provision of Music in the FET phase of South African schools.