The Government yesterday launched an arts and education committee aimed at increasing exposure to the arts in schools.
The five-member committee must report to the Arts Council by May 1st next year with its recommendations on how best to promote and encourage music, art, drama and visual arts in the education system.
It is the first time the departments of Education and Arts, Sport and Tourism have come together in such an initiative. Minister for Education Mary Hanafin said it was important to have arts guidelines for schools because some students lost out on exposure to the arts due to their subject choices at second level.
"By establishing this new arts and education committee, a new vision of how we can best encourage a love of arts in our schools and use the curriculum and facilities to all young people's best advantage will be explored," she said.
Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism John O'Donoghue said there had not previously been enough emphasis on the arts in the formative years of education.
"In the future, I would hope the arts would play a far more central role in the education of children and that they would learn an appreciation of the arts at an earlier age," he said.
The committee will be chaired by Mary Nunan, director of an MA in contemporary dance performance at the University of Limerick. The other members are:
Orlaith McBride, director of the National Association for Youth Drama.
Jerome Morrissey, director of the National Centre for Technology in Education.
Pádraig MacSitric, assistant chief inspector at the Department of Education.
Derek West, chair of the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals' arts and culture committee.
Olive Braiden, Arts Council chairwoman, said the importance of the arts in education was highlighted by the fact that that the two Ministers had come together to launch the committee.
"It will facilitate teachers, pupils, parents and artists to work together to ensure that young people's experience of the arts, both in the classroom and outside, is of the highest quality," Ms Braiden said.
The committee has been asked to make "specific deliverable recommendations" for implementation over a three- to five-year period. It must cost these recommendations, bearing in mind the Arts Council and the Department of Education budgets.
