A study of the effects of introducing charging on the provision of instrumental music tuition in Wigan Local Education Authority

Abstract

Wigan Education Authority had provided an Instrumental Teaching Service free of charge to all its schools and colleges since the reorganisation of local government in 1974. In the last decade there have been progressive cuts in this service until, in 1994, the funding was almost totally withdrawn. Literally overnight what was once a totally free service became a service that charged for every aspect of its work. This research, sponsored by the LEA, considers the effects of introducing charging on the provision of the Instrumental Teaching in Wigan.
In undertaking this research I have been able to study a great deal of documentary evidence dating from 1981 to the present. This has enabled me to discover how charging has affected the socio-geographic coverage of the service, the variety of instruments being taught, the numbers of pupils learning and the standards that they are achieving. In addition I wanted to look at how charging had affected the attitudes of pupils receiving tuition, their instrumental teachers, managers of the service and Headteachers in schools. This has largely been achieved through the use of semistructured
interviews.
This research also looks at the effects of charging on the teaching within the service. In order to do this I adopted the role of 'non-participant known observe?. I observed the work of nine teachers working in a wide variety of teaching situations and with a wide age range of pupils.
The findings of this research have implications for the Instrumental Teaching Service in terms of:-
• Developing teaching within the service and in particular group teaching skills.
• Exploring how a more equitable Socio-Geographic provision can be achieved.
• Providing suitably challenging enrichment opportunities for pupils learning the most popular instruments.