ITE O'DONOVAN,
Madam, - Melda Slattery of the DIT public affairs office writes (February 17th) that "DIT's Conservatory of Music and Drama is the largest provider of tuition in the performing arts in the country". She must not be aware that, due to the severe reduction in part-time student numbers from 2,000 to 1,400 since 1995, the DIT Conservatory has fallen well behind in music provision. For example, Cork School of Music has a current enrolment of 3,600 with well over 2,000 students.
Perhaps the public affairs office is also unaware that the DIT inherited the College of Music not only with students at primary and second level but also with whole-time students on two degree courses set up in association with Trinity College in 1987 and 1988.
Ms Slattery states that DIT "will not prioritise any one area of study at the expense of any other". Too late for this, Ms Slattery! Dr Ellen Hazelkorn, the director of applied arts, recently informed staff at a public meeting of her intention to have all part-time students assessed with a view to cutting student numbers while the third-level area would continue to be developed. In fact she assured us that a new M.Mus. course was to be introduced. Is this at the expense of the junior workshop and pre-instrumental courses being axed?
It is, of course, very noble of Dr Brendan Goldsmith to call on the Ministers for Education and Science and for Arts, Sport and Tourism to develop a meaningful national policy on music education. But perhaps he has forgotten that in 1994 he himself commissioned and personally launched a major initiative to report on the state of music education - the Music Education National Debate (MEND), which took place between October 1994 and November 1996 - with the unprecedented, and highly significant, step of having it conducted by Frank Heneghan, at dedicated directorate level with Department of Education approval.
Is MEND to be amended? Finally, at €4 an hour we are told we are getting good value. But when we divide €4 into €353 we get 88.25 hours. But there are only 34 academic weeks and that only makes 17 hours of one-to-one tuition? No student receives one-to-one musicianship or ensemble class! - Yours, etc.,
ITE O'DONOVAN, TUI Representative, DIT Conservatory of Music and Drama, Dublin 2.