Dr. Orla McDonagh:

I thank Senator O'Donnell for those questions. The point she made about capitulating to the economy is pertinent and I will address it before I answer what she asked me to address. The interesting thing about neuroscience research in the past 30 years is that it is finally proving that music training from a very early age gives a person much more advantage in terms of how he or she learns other subjects. We know that for a fact. The question is no longer about why are we capitulating to the economy. The question should be whether we can afford not to give our economy the boost of having an educated population growing up with these extra skills, 22% in English and 20% in maths. One cannot argue with that. That is a significant boost for an economy, regardless of any of the other benefits of having a music education.

The other aspect we have not mentioned today, but which is pertinent to all of us, is the value of music to somebody in terms of his or her mental health over the course of his or her entire life, such as self-confidence and all the soft skills that go with that. When we talk about the value to the economy, it is important we do not forget those things too.

Senator O'Donnell asked me specifically to address the issue of music literacy. I talked about primary school students leaving without a sense of literacy. It is important that they are exposed to the diversity of traditions. There are certainly similar things in all our musical traditions when it comes to literacy, things like training the ear properly, learning how to sing and learning how to improvise, which is present in all our traditions. From the standpoint of classical music specifically, it is learning how to read music. In terms of our traditional music, third level students in DIT are arranging and transcribing music of all cultures and blending it with Irish music. This is where the youth are taking this, which is fantastic. In order to do that, they need to know how to read music. Literacy is actually a combination of those four things, particularly at primary school level. For example, recorder or violin classes, which can be done in group settings, give students a chance to learn an instrument in that environment without having to take private lessons. That would help literacy. The primary school curriculum gives three hours every week for all the arts. We are talking about a very short time in our national curriculum to address anything to do with music. It is quite vague. The dilemma for most primary school teachers is that they are, by their nature, generalist educators. From my own standpoint, the fastest way to lift all of this is to engage specialist music teachers with the primary school curriculum to ensure literacy. We would get there a great deal faster. From my standpoint, that is what will answer that question.

Legislation is the most important thing. It needs to be driven by both Departments so that we can interconnect perfectly. There is a means to do this in an extraordinary way where we can be creative and have all our traditions present but can still ensure that every child has a real education in music. If there is a way to design that kind of ecosystem, it will come out of a multi-department or perhaps a multi-organisational move.