Out of the Woods Yet? The Continuing Impact of National Standards on New Zealand Music Education

Abstract

Several years have passed since the removal of National Standards, however the current provision and enactment of music education in New Zealand remains unknown. Using a case study, this article seeks to illustrate the current practice of music education at one high decile primary school. This study finds that despite the removal National Standards, reading, writing and mathematics have continued to be prioritised, dominating classroom timetables, initial teacher education and the allocation of resources and professional development. With limited opportunities for music-making in the classroom, I argue that practice has stagnated and without targeted policies, music will continue to be marginalised within the curriculum.

<p>Music in Early Childhood Education: generalist teachers versus specialist teachers [Música en Educación Infantil: profesores generalistas versus profesores especialistas]</p>

“…Music teacher education has been reduced in other parts of the world, in Finland, for example, music subjects have 5 ECTS credits, so that many content areas are not sufficiently addressed or are overlooked (Suomi et al, 2022). The decline of music education is also reflected at all levels of education and in other countries such as England (Savage, 2020;Whittaker, 2021), Sweden (Mateos-Moreno, 2022), Australia (Barret et al, 2019) or New Zealand (Browne, 2022). This reality of music education is leading to an impoverishment of music in public education and an expansion of private provision (Aprile, 2021;Young, 2021).…”