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Music is at the heart of our culture and plays a vital role in children’s development. Numerous studies confirm the benefits of learning music for a child’s development and the resulting psychosocial benefits such as socialization, empathy, concentration, and perseverance.
Yet, its teaching in Quebec’s elementary and secondary schools is going through a critical period. For several years, the professional music community has observed a worrying decline in music education and laments its lack of value, monitoring, and documentation.
Several announcements last spring attest to the decline of music education, notably the reduction of the music-study program at La Camaradière school in Quebec City, the discontinuation of the program at École du Plateau in La Malbaie, and the relocation of École Face and its anticipated consequences. However, many more discreet decisions are regularly made in schools that, faced with budgetary challenges, a lack of qualified teachers, or inadequate facilities, choose to abandon music education.
While it is possible to assess the current state of music-study programs using data collected by the Ministry of Education, no data exists to analyze the state of music education within regular elementary and secondary school programs. A compulsory subject between 1937 and 1980, music lost its special status and was integrated into the Quebec school curriculum alongside visual arts, drama, and dance. While arts education remains compulsory, the choice of artistic discipline taught is left to the discretion of the school.
Thus, since this choice is considered a local educational decision, the Ministry of Education does not collect any data on the subjects taught, the number of classes or students who have benefited, nor the conditions under which this instruction is provided. In the past, university researchers have attempted to obtain data on music education by contacting school service centers directly, without much success.
Meanwhile, testimonies from specialized teachers are multiplying: insufficient teaching hours, inadequate facilities and equipment, and uncertainty about the continuation of courses from one year to the next. Increasingly, music education is disappearing completely.
Given the lack of a documented assessment of the state of music education over the past 45 years and the difficulty in accessing reliable data to describe the current situation, we believe it is imperative that the Ministry of Education conduct a review of arts education in schools and establish a data collection mechanism to monitor the evolution of the actual state of music education in Quebec’s elementary and secondary schools.
In this way, with full awareness of the situation, in a world where Quebec identity must be preserved, where artificial intelligence threatens creativity, and where the hegemony of American music weighs down music platforms, we can work together to provide quality music education for our future musical talent and audiences.
* Also co-signed by: Mélanie La Couture, Chief Executive Officer of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra; Astrid Chouinard, General Manager of the Quebec Symphony Orchestra; Fabienne Voisin, General Manager of the Orchestre Métropolitain; Marie-Michelle Raby, General Manager of the Drummondville Symphony Orchestra; Esther Labrie, General Manager of the Abitibi-Témiscamingue Regional Symphony Orchestra; Stéphanie Girard, General Manager of the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean Symphony Orchestra; Julie Brosseau, General Manager of the Trois-Rivières Symphony Orchestra; Guy Bernard, Quebec Musicians’ Guild; Sean Ferguson, Dean of the Schulich School of Music at McGill University; Isabelle Héroux, Full Professor at UQAM and member of the Interuniversity Research and Creation Group: Music and Society (RCMS).
Translation by Google Translate
This page is also available in / Cette page est également disponible en:
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