Making Music believes that free sustained instrumental tuition is an essential part of the accessible and inclusive music education that should be available to all children aged 5-18 years. However MEHs cannot possibly succeed with the level of funding they have and the way they have been tasked.
The numbers just released by Arts Council England (ACE) support our view. ACE distributes funding to MEHs, and manages and monitors their performance.
One of the aims of the creation of MEHs was to eliminate postcode lottery and give every child comparable access whatever their family background, whatever their parental finances, and whatever their physical or mental barriers.
Making Music believes that equitable and inclusive access to music education can be provided in schools because:
- children are already there
- that is where their education takes place
- in the same way that grammar is part of English, and algebra part of Maths – without parents being asked to pay for them separately – learning an instrument is part of music
