The uptake of A-level music has fallen by a catastrophic 45% in the UK since 2020

Tom Watson, Baron Watson of Wyre Forest, served as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2019 and Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport from 2016 to 2019.

You can sign up to Tom Watson’s Newsletter here

The Ezra Collective have just made history by becoming the first jazz act to win the Mercury Prize. The quintet’s drummer Femi Koleoso, seized the moment to explain:

”This moment that we’re celebrating right here is testament to good, special people putting time and effort into young people to play music”.

He is correct, but this is more than a milestone for the UK jazz scene; it’s a testament to the untapped potential lying within our nation’s schools.

At a time when the Government is looking to drive British exports and give our economy a boost, we have a possible gold mine sitting in our classrooms.

The UK’s music superstars helped boost exports of British music to a record £2.5 billion in 2021 in a market where competition from nations like South Korea is increasingly ferocious.  That figure is set to soar even higher.

Thousands of young people in our state schools could go on to help increase that export market, revive our economy and enrich our cultural landscape by fulfilling their dreams of following in the footsteps of some of our global icons like Adele, Stormzy and Ed Sheeran.

However, they face a major barrier which we need to remove if they are to get a chance to capitalise on their musical talents.

The precipitous decline in music education is fast reaching the point where learning a musical instrument or how to sing professionally could soon become the preserve of the rich and the privileged.

There are some success stories, such as that of Sheku Kanneh-Mason, the outstanding young cellist who played at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.  He studied A-level music at a Nottingham comprehensive in a disadvantaged part of the city and defied the odds to become a BBC Young Musician of the Year and a global star.

The reality is very different for young people at most state schools. The uptake of A-level music has fallen by a catastrophic 45% in the UK since 2020, when the English Baccalaureate was introduced. It is a similarly worrying picture for those studying music for GCSE.

A big part of the problem is the significant fall in the number of music teachers and funding cuts that have left many schools struggling to afford even the most basic of musical instruments.

There are now parts of the country where it is almost impossible for a budding musician to study A-level music.

According to a study by Birmingham City University, the rate of entry decline is so severe that no one might be taking A-level music in just ten years.

That would be a tragedy for all the tens of thousands of children who will miss out on the joy music brings with all its benefits to health and wellbeing and the chance of a fulfilling career.

It would be a disaster for our cultural landscape if we are deprived of future stars who would never grace the stage at Glastonbury or join the orchestra at the Royal Opera House.

There is also the damage it will cause to the talent pipeline of the UK music industry, which has a reputation for producing performers, musicians and music professionals who contribute billions each year to our economy.

So many young people dream of singing or playing music for a career.  They have the ambition, drive and talent. They lack the opportunity.

As a first step, it is imperative we reverse the decline in music teaching in our state schools. Put simply, we must train and recruit hundreds more music teachers with the passion and determination to make music lessons the best part of any child’s week.

Between 2010 and this year, the number of people starting initial teacher training for music has more than halved.  Removing the music teacher training bursary in 2020 means fewer people can afford to train for the job.

As the Chair of UK Music, the collective voice of the UK music industry, we are putting the need to train and hire more music teachers at the heart of UK Music’s “Music Manifesto,” which we will deliver to the Government this week. (Sept 12).

According to the Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza, more than one in five children in England are now frequently missing school – double pre-Covid levels. Over the last academic year, Department for Education figures show 22.3% of pupils in England were persistently absent.

That’s deeply worrying.  Yet, we have a chance through the power of music to play a part in helping get children back in the classroom.

The UK has successfully converted the creativity of its music makers into a global industry for over half a century. To continue to do so, our talent pipeline needs fixing.

So many young people dream of singing or playing music for a career. As Femi Koleoso of the Mercury Prize-winning Ezra Collective rightly pointed out, this is “a special moment for every single organisation across the country, ploughing efforts and time into young people playing music.”

One final thought. When the robots are doing all the manual work and half the cognitive work, what’s left? The jobs that require emotional intelligence and creative collective problem-solving. How do you bring up a generation of future workers to be ready for that? Give them a creative curriculum that’s second to none in the world. The time to act is now.

Comments are closed.