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How about it, Mark and John - funding for arts education for Australian kids!

By Helen O'Neil - posted Friday, 24 September 2004


A $1.9 million scheme in New South Wales called Arts Access has brought 2,500 students in 51 remote primary schools into contact with professional artists and to theatres. The major barrier to introducing arts into these schools turned out to be the price of the bus hire to take kids to the nearby town, or to take a touring company into a school. The same scheme, which runs from 2003-2007, has paid for a week-long workshop for gifted indigenous kids from remote areas to develop their visual arts skills - the sort of school holiday programme which is available in inner urban areas as a matter of course.

The Bell Shakespeare Company has greatly expanded its education programmes over the past couple of years and now reaches 60,000 students. This year it undertook interactive broadcasting of its Actors At Work programme through the interactive distance satellite-teaching facility in the Northern Territory, reaching 90 remote families and 76 small schools. Many of the students who participated had their first Shakespeare experience through this programme. The Company also toured Actors At Work into far northwest New South Wales by chartering a plane to deliver performances for 1,500 students in 10 schools for the first in-school touring performances into this region for some years.

It is a combination of vibrant, exciting artistic work with the funds to take it where audiences are most receptive.

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Musica Viva is a world leader in developing exciting and inspiring performances for schools, given by exemplary musicians and supported by workshops and high quality resource materials for teachers. The organisation reaches more than 400,000 children every year in Australia and Singapore through programmes funded by education departments, arts funding agencies, schools, sponsorship and philanthropy.  In each state, it builds a touring programme with performance ensembles presenting a variety of musical styles at a professional level, which covers a wide range of chamber music, including world music, Indigenous and popular styles. Often these bands present students with their first live music experience by professional performers. Musica Viva is also providing award winning programmes through the web, including an interactive website for students

The potential for extending this work across the art forms and across Australia is very exciting, but national leadership from the parties seeking election will be an important factor in driving change over the next few years.

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Article edited by Betsy Fysh.
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About the Author

Helen O’Neil is the Executive Director of the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences has more than 100 member organisations covering universities, the learned academies, collecting institutions and professional associations and learned societies through the sector. She was previously a director of an independent publishing company.

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