Why Is Music Education Important?

Every child deserves a quality music education. Not just because we want to nurture the next Jessica Mauboy or Gurrumul Yunupingu, but because music is good.

There is now a significant body of research demonstrating the multiple benefit of an arts-rich education from an early age. Music helps us communicate, collaborate and develop our creativity.

Music helps our brain make connections that support our learning in other areas, such as literacy and numeracy. Music helps us express and engage with our emotions. Music helps us make sense of the world around us, and is an ancient and universal language common to every single human culture.

Not every child currently receives a quality music education. There is pressure on an already crowded curriculum to focus on and improve literacy and numeracy. There are not enough music teachers to go round, and many primary school teachers do not feel confident to teach music.

Some schools might say they don't have resources to support music programs. Many parents had negative experiences at school themselves, or feel that it is too late for them to learn. There is sometimes a community perception that music is peripheral; it is a specialist study only for the innately talented, or that it is not important for getting a job.

Some children are receiving a quality music education. There are some fantastic people, programs and practices in the Northern Territory, which is why we have a flourishing cultural life. The best programs involve passionate students, teachers and parents; along with great partnerships between teachers and artists, schools and organisations like ours.

What can we do to improve, so that all children receive a quality music education?

We can talk about it. We can advocate for it. We can persuade others with evidence. We can lead by example and participate ourselves. Students and parents can be great teachers.  Musicians as artists often make excellent teachers, because of their passion, creativity and communication skills, especially when music is a common language.

Here is a 2015 report describing the state of Arts Education in NT Government schools based on a survey of NT Government school principals:

How Can Northern Territory Government  Schools Implement a Quality Arts Education for Every Student?

 "The future belongs to young people with an education and the imagination to create."

Barack Obama

 Teaching Music

Why Music Education Belongs In  Public Schools

Why Music Matters

Richard Gill OAM - The Value of Music Education