The teachers at the Royal Conservatory of Music have been working without a contract for over two years. Management has been increasing fees for students, leading to the observation "The administration’s current focus on exciting and trendy new ventures has been at the expense of lost studio spaces, a lapsed collective agreement and faculty resignations. Furthermore, the skyrocketing fees have turned the school from one for the musically talented to the financially elite."
From their October newsletter (Vol. 1, Issue 2):
The Bargaining Unit Table Team met with management on Sept. 16 and 24. A few items were agreed to; however, substantial items remain for further discussion (membership, seniority, teaching and examining entitlement) while other critical ones (working condi- tions, benefits, compensation) have yet not been bargained.
Music lessons should be accessible to all! Fees should be low, and teachers should receive proper compensation for their contribution to the health and well-being of our citizens and future musicians. Again, from the newsletter:
For some years now we have striven to attract promising young professionals to the Glenn Gould School. Almost all of them will do some, even a great deal, of teaching in their careers. If this treatment is what they and future generations have to expect, there will be even less reason to enter the profession!
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Thanks for covering the story as it unfolds!
ReplyDeleteCheers,
J
Should this not read "Annihilating the Arts in Canada" as 'decimate' means to remove 1 in 10?
ReplyDeleteWell, I use the more contemporary meaning "remove a large percentage of." I don't think annihilating the arts is possible: we would have to cease to be human before the annihilation of culture could occur. The government would have to seriously run our whole society into the ground before that would happen.
ReplyDeleteHere's a dictionary definition:
decimate |ˈdesəˌmāt|
verb [ trans. ] (often be decimated)
1 kill, destroy, or remove a large percentage or part of : the project would decimate the fragile wetland wilderness | the American chestnut, a species decimated by blight.
• drastically reduce the strength or effectiveness of (something) : plant viruses that can decimate yields.
2 historical kill one in every ten of (a group of soldiers or others) as a punishment for the whole group.