ATTRACTING ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT FOR MUSIC EDUCATION IN SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN CAPE COAST (GHANA): THE ROLE OF THE MUSIC TEACHER

ABSTRACT

School administrations are often confronted with the problem of cutting

back financial assistance of some academic departments of their institutions due

to consistent budgetary constraints. Often: the tendency has been to make

music departments their first point of call. Ironically, these headmasters

acknowledge the fact that music plays a vital rAle in their schools.

Music education, in various forms, has been on the curricular of secondcycle

schools in Ghana since the introduction of secondary education into the

country. However, there seems to be the problem of inadequate administrative

support for music education, especially at this time when so-called peripheral

subject areas in our schools suffer routine financial cut-backs.

This study investigated the views of school heads, music teachers, and

music students on the role that music teachers, as the engine of growth of music

education in our schools, can play to ensure a sustainable flow of administrative

support for music in our schools.

Questionnaires and Interview Guides were designed and administered on

a population which consisted of ten (10) school heads, five (5) music teachers.

and one hundred and forty-seven (147) music students, all in five (5) sampled

schools in the Cape Coast municipality.

The methodology used was the analytical-descriptive method; and

qualitative and quantitative analysis involving frequencies, percentages, and

means were used to analyse the data.

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The study revealed that there is an abysmally low level of administrative

support for music education during a greater part of the academic year in our

secondary schools. The study brought to the fore that, for about a quarter of the

year when the music department of a school would be greatly needed for the

organization of a successful speech and Prize-Giving Day, support for the

department phenomenally increases. It was realized from the study that low

enrolment in music departments was the major contributing factor to low support

for the music programme. Two identifiable factors which accounted for this

problem of low enrolment were

a) The non-compliance of the directives from the Ghana Education Service

that music as an elective academic SUbject should be accommodated in all

senior secondary school programmes except the technical programme (See

Appendix 4)

b) Misconceptions about music which are carried on to newlyadmitted

students by some school heads and teachers who

are in charge of giving orientation to new students.

The study concluded that if support for the music programme can be

augmented, then music teachers must go an extra mile by

i) working harder to secure a good schedule for music on

the senior secondary school time-table in many academic

programmes as directed by the Ghana Education Service,to

enable many more students to enrol.

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il) working harder to make school administrators realize that their

recognition of the worth of music in their schools is incomplete if

they only need music because of its aesthetic values without a

corresponding recognition and support for the academic aspect.

iii) working harder to make music an enviable subject in the school

curriculum through which students can reach higher goals.

iv) working harder to become role-models in the eyes of current

students who have the potentiality of advising future students

(most of whom would be their relations) to enrol in music.

In these ways, the study affirms and concludes, the music teacher can

become an effective and reliable vehicle through whom many students would be

shepherded into the music programme and thereby attracting the needed

administrative support.