Music Education in School
Art, Culture and Education
Music education cannot be seen as an isolated domain or subject. In the Netherlands music education should be seen in a general context of education in art and culture. Culture and school has the aim to make pupils familiar with art and cultural heritage. By offering more education with and about culture, pupils learn to know the value of art and culture. This will widen insight and activate creative talents. To provide this the ministry is working together with local and regional governments, cultural institutions and educational organisations. The national government is concentrating on structural provisions for schools, teachers and pupils, knowledge development and communication about cultural education.
Core Aims
All seven thousand primary schools work with core aims (“kerndoelen”). These aims describe the minimum of what schools have to offer in the different subjects. With orientation on art (“kunstzinnige orientatie”), pupils are made familiar with artistic and cultural aspects in their living environment. Children should become familiar with those aspects of cultural heritage which have been given form and meaning by society. In this domain it is also important that pupils attain some knowledge of modern art and cultural diversity. This takes place not only in school, but by a regular interaction with the outside world as well. Children learn to be open: they observe paintings, listen to music, and enjoy language and movement. With orientation on art they learn to appreciate the cultural and artistic expressions in their world. Besides this they are actively involved in making music, dancing, making fine art objects, etc. and learn to express themselves with artistic materials and tools:
- they learn to explore the materials of fine arts from examples of aspects like colour, form, space, texture and composition
- they make drawings and three dimensional objects
- they learn songs and learn to use musical instruments as accompaniment
- they play and dance.
Where possible, subjects are used which have connection to those in other domains. In this way education will be more coherent and meaningful.
In 2005-2006 68 new core aims were introduced of which three are concerned with the arts. Schools were given a long transitional period in which to incorporate these aims which are compulsory from 2009-2010:
54) Pupils learn to use images, language, music, play and movement to express emotions and experiences and to communicate.
55) Pupils learn to reflect of their own work and that of others.
56) Pupils obtain some knowledge of and appreciation for aspects of cultural heritage.
These aims are global and do not indicate how the content and aims are organised. Suggestions for this are formulated by an educational organisation (SLO), a national institute meant to support curriculum development and learning tools. In a document “Tule, guidelines for sub-aims and learning courses” the core aims are described in more concrete steps. These guidelines do not describe a method or plan but give possible solutions. Below under “Music curricula” you will find a concrete description for music.
More recently the government is focussing policy on cultural education on primary education in particular. In principle the most citizens will be reached here and culture education is most effective during this age range. Cultural activities in primary education are stimulated by a series of regulations.
Strengthening Culture Education in Primary Education
This regulation will anchor culture education in schools. The aim is that children will get acquainted with culture in a continuous way. To realise this, schools cooperate with cultural institutions. This regulation runs from 2004 to 2007. Participating schools receive € 10.90 per pupil per school to spend on cultural education. After 2007 all schools will receive € 10.90 as part of the total finance (so it will not be ring-fenced anymore).
GrassRoots Culture (www.grassroots.nl)
The government wanted to stimulate the use of ICT. One of the projects was GrassRoots Culture, an incidental regulation for primary education. GrassRoots Culture worked with supportive institutes, so-called location holders. Teachers proposed ideas for a culture project. If the project was positively accepted, the teacher received € 500 or another kind of reward (e.g. digital camera). When the project was carried out, a report was written which was put on the website of GrassRoots Culture as a case study and stimulus for others. This regulation ended in December 2005.
PROPOSO (www.proposo.Koncon.nl)
PROPOSO was a concrete consequence of a political action. This financial investment of € 1,9m was meant to improve the quality of music education in primary schools and schools for children with special needs. PROPOSO started in 2002 under the coordination of the Royal Conservatoire, The Hague. In June 2005 eleven projects were presented, amongst others: music and ICT, teacher training music specialists, singing class, etc.
BIK
Since 2002/2003 the project Professional Artists in Schools (“Beroepskunstenaars in de Klas”) is running. Artists are generally educated to teach arts in primary education (it is not a teacher training qualification ).
Secondary Education
All of the approximately 800 secondary schools work with the national agreed subjects and exam programmes. However, every school has the freedom to arrange the curriculum as it likes. Currently all subjects are undergoing changes due to the overall changes in secondary education: a new first phase (12-15 years), the streams in preparatory middle-level vocational education, and the second phase (15‑18 years).
Arts and cultural education is a key instrument to promote cultural participation. Students in secondary education visit museums, theatres and concerts, mostly as a part of voluntary extra-curricular activities. In the past decades the government created opportunities to intensify the contacts between schools and professional artists. In 1998 this policy became more solid when "Arts and Cultural Education" was introduced as a compulsory subject at “havo” and “vwo” (second phase). In “vmbo” a similar subject was implemented in 2003.
The introduction of arts and cultural education has the aim that students learn to make a motivated choice of cultural activities that are meaningful to them. The intention of such participation in school is that young people will grow up at ease with taking part in cultural activities throughout their lives. The government supports these cultural visits by providing each student with vouchers worth € 22.50 which can be used as payment in museums, theatres, cinemas, etc. Besides this the student receives a CJP-card which gives a discount on tickets, etc.
Arts and Cultural Education in secondary education is preferably taught by a team of teachers of different subjects, such as mother language, foreign languages, visual arts, music and drama.
First Phase
Since 1 August 2006 a new first phase is in force. Instead of a uniform basic programme, the government dictates 58 core aims for seven learning domains. A school is obliged to spend at least 2/3 of the time on these aims and learning domains. For the remaining 1/3 of the time the school can determine the curriculum.
The arts are placed in the domain Art and Culture. The general aim of this domain is ‘a broad orientation on art and culture’. The other domains are: Dutch language, English, mathematics, human and nature, human and society, sports.
Art education is generally offered by two subjects e.g. music and fine arts. Some schools also offer drama and/or dance. There are schools which profile themselves as arts schools. In these schools much emphasis is put on the arts by offering more hours of lessons and extra activities. In general arts teachers are striving for active, receptive and reflective approaches.
Second Phase
All of the approximately 800 schools for secondary education are working with the national agreed subjects and exam programmes. However, every school has its own interpretation. The developments in the arts subjects are directly influenced by the general changes in education: a renewed first stage (12-14), the differentiation in “vmbo” (preparatory middle-level vocational education) and the second stage (15-18).