Singer Billy Bragg has warned that the government's
education reforms risk stifling creativity and leaving the pop charts the
preserve of a well-off public school elite.
Bragg used a lecture in memory of broadcaster John Peel in
Salford to criticise education secretary Michael Gove's plans to scrap GCSEs in
favour of an English baccalaureate. He also turned his ire on and
"culture-clogging shows" such as Simon Cowell's The X Factor on ITV1.
The singer and leftwing activist said the government's
proposed new education system threatened to exclude creative subjects from the
core qualifications expected of 16-year-olds.
"At a time of cuts to the education budget, the
pressure on schools to dump subjects like music and drama in favour of those
that offer high marks in performances tables will only grow," said Bragg.
He criticised the "insistence that knowledge is more
important than creativity", adding: "As Albert Einstein said,
imagination is more important than knowledge, for knowledge is limited while
imagination embraces the whole world".
Bragg, delivering the second annual John Peel Lecture at the
Radio Festival on Monday, said: "Under the English baccalaureate, with its
reliance on a single end of course exam, the child with the creative
imagination will always lose out to the child with the ability to recall
knowledge learned by rote.
"And it's not just the creatively talented kids who
will suffer. Evidence shows that pupils from low-income families who take part
in arts activities at school are three times more likely to go on to higher
education.
"Young people do better in English and maths subjects
if they study the arts. They are more easily employable, more likely to vote,
to volunteer and to get a degree. You might add to that they will be more
likely to get into the charts, too."
Bragg said there had been a "steady decline" over
the past decade of state-educated artists getting into the top 10. He pointed
to a magazine study which compared the charts from 1990, when 80% of artists
were state educated, with 2010 when the charts were dominated by people who
went to private schools.
"A decent education in the arts will only be available
to those able to pay for it," said Bragg.
"Now I realise that private education is something that
no-one really wants to talk about in the UK," he told the audience of
radio and music industry executives in Salford.
"Politicians would rather lay the blame for inequality
at the door of the underfunded state system than discuss the excessive
influence of the privately educated.
"But the fact is that, for the first time since the
1960s, our society is dominated by the 10% of the population who go to private
school.
"The prime minister went to Eton; the archbishop of
Canterbury went to Eton; the mayor of London went to Eton: even the man they
tell me is the new Billy Bragg – Frank Turner – went to Eton.
"Now you may be thinking here he goes – middle-aged
Clash fan railing against the state of modern music. I don't have anything
against those who were sent to private schools by their parents – Peel himself
went to Shrewsbury public school and Joe Strummer went to Westminster.
"And my only real criterion when it comes to music is
whether or not song moves me. This issue here is not one of social class, but
of access."
Bragg called on the radio industry to take more risks with
the music they played, like John Peel.
"For teenagers today, the most obvious path to a career
in the music industry would be the shiny floor TV talent shows which have come
to dominate the schedules and the charts," he said.
"Yet the judgemental approach of culture-clogging shows
like The X Factor is the diametrical opposite of what John Peel stood for. His
only criterion was that the music he played had to be challenging – whether it
was good or not he let his audience decide.
"Now I realise that's not a very good business model
for some of you, that such eclectic programming sounds like commercial suicide,
but lets not forget that Peel operated alongside mainstream broadcasters like
Tony Blackburn and Steve Wright throughout his career at Radio 1.
"It's about finding a balance between the comfort of
the mainstream and the shock of the new."
Bragg used the example of Jake Bugg, the Clifton-born singer
songwriter who went to number one in the UK with his self-titled debut album
last month.
Bugg broke through after his single was picked up by a
presenter on his local radio station, BBC Radio Nottingham. It had previously
come to the appearance of a local commercial station, Trent FM, but the
station's "unsigned" initiative was closed down after it was
rebranded as part of Global Radio's nationwide network, Capital FM, said Bragg.
"When Jake Bugg got to No1, it made national news
headlines – why?" asked Bragg.
"Because he never went to stage school nor graduated
from the Brits Academy. He didn't enter Britain's Got Talent, not submit
himself to the humiliations of The X Factor. Because he's just an ordinary kid
from a state school.
"Should that make him an exception? I don't think so.
"I can't believe that there aren't plenty of articulate
teenagers out there with an ear for a good tune and a chip on their shoulder
who have something to say.
"Given the crucial role that radio played in bringing
Jake Bugg to the attention of the music industry, and the good work that is
being done to introduce new talent to the airwaves, why aren't there more kids
from his kind of background in the charts?"
Source: 12 November 2012, The Guardian by John Plunkett
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