Krista Henry, Staff Reporter

The Immaculate Conception High School orchestra at Devon House, St. Andrew, last year February. Cecile Strudwick Green of the School of Music says that the music programme at Immaculate is the work of parents and teachers, not the Government. - file

Music, the heartbeat of Jamaica, captures the culture of its every crevice. Yet owing to lack of attention at the basic level the music is suffering. Shortage of funds, equipment and teachers, as well as policies by the Government, have placed music in schools at a deplorable level.

Every year, the staff at the School of Music, Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, see students who often lack a full grasp of music that was not taught before they reached the tertiary level. Cecile Strudwick Green, assistant director and head of music education at the college, said, "In the school system we are very short of music teachers. The main reason is because salaries are so small for teachers. When anyone is going into general teaching it's not music specific. Music teachers don't often go into teaching because they can make more money outside."

unqualified teachers

She claims that often persons teaching music are not qualified enough to do so and, if they are, they are faced with lack of equipment. Green said that while there are schools that excel at music, such as Immaculate Conception, it has nothing to do with work done by the Government, but by parents and teachers.

However, while the Government has been blamed for not exerting the effort for music to be entrenched in the school system, the School of Music has had its share of criticism. But Green explains that "many times we at the School of Music are criticised for sending out students who are not well trained. What happens is they hire students that come in and do a pop music certificate for two years, that are trained to be band members. These principals hire them as teachers and then they say to us your teacher cannot teach. But we didn't train them for that - so don't criticise us."

gov't not doing enough

Rosina Moder, lecturer for recorder at the School of Music and chairperson of the RCA Music Foundation, argues that the Government is not doing enough for music. According to Moder, music has played a vital role in placing Jamaica at the centre of the world's attention, yet no care is given to it.

"Government policy over the years, I have not seen it putting in effort or money in cultural policies supporting music. We need a national music foundation. Jamaica's fame in the world is music and they don't even care. The country has not even started to support music. Jamaica has not acknowledged the real resource of music," Moder said.

"We can train the best teachers at the School of Music, but they're going out into bare music rooms. If the vision isn't there with the necessary equipment, then we are fighting an uphill battle with students and music. There's a far way to go with what is being offered in the schools," Moder said. Green commented that they refuse to send their students out there to teach unless they have somewhere proper to teach in.

The attitudes that have been propagated during the early years of music education has affected the students who come to the college to learn music. "Many of them are not prepared to study music seriously. They come in and they have seen pop stars that have never had musical training. They know they can make money without going through the rigours that we are requesting of them," Green said.

And while some go through the challenges and become excellent musicians, sometimes when leaving school there are not sufficient job opportunities open to them. Moder says there are "not enough job opportunities, no matter how much they are trained. There's a problem that the Government is not ensuring that our musicians are hired."

Although the School of Music makes every attempt, as Green states, there is simply not sufficient space and instruments and more is needed to do what is necessary for musical training in Jamaica.