Kulturskolerådet History in English

The first public Norwegian music schools were established back in the 1950s. These days Norway has close to 430 municipal music and arts schools. Of these 409 are members of the national organisation Norsk Kulturskoleråd - The Norwegian Council for Schools of Music and Performing Art. Altogether there are about 100 000 pupils in the schools, quite a number studying more than one subject. There are no initial tests excluding applicants, but each child and her parents are advised about adequate age for starting, and suitability for the chosen subject.

If you count all members of bands, orchestras and choirs lead by music school teachers, and take into consideration cooperation with compulsory schools, more than 150 000 children and youth are in one way or another related to the municipal music and art schools. Most of the children involved are between 7 to 16 years, some schools also include grown-ups – even pensioners. In average, 17 percent of children in primary and secondary school are pupils in music and art schools. The National Parliament has however defined a goal of 30 percent – at the least.

About 5000 teachers are working in the music and art schools. Quite a number of schools are offering different subjects - classical music is still the dominant – but also theatre, visual arts, dance, creative writing and contemporary circus. Most of the teachers work part-time, in particular in the districts where the schools normally are rather small. The average teacher has an 30-40 percent employment, often in combination with the compulsory schools or local cultural institutions or organisations. In particular out in the districts, schools in day-time sometimes include music and art school teaching due to long distances to the pupils’ homes.

A national organisation was established in 1973, then as a meeting-place for the headmasters of the odd 60 member schools. In 2000 it was merged with the smaller organisation for the visual arts, creating the present The Norwegian Council for Schools of Music and Performing Art.

Formally this is an organisation owned by municipals with a music and art school. In reality it is still strongly influenced by the school headmasters, having a need for a professional companionship as leaders of a unique school in each municipality. During the last decade, politicians have increasingly attended the boards both at regional and national level. The National Meeting every 2nd year is the highest authority of the organisation, consisting of representatives elected by the members from each of the 19 counties. In between these gatherings, the national board of 7 members is the governing body.

The Norwegian Council for Schools of Music and Performing Art has its national management, specialist advisers and training staff of 15 people in Trondheim. At county level there are regional board and an secretary, the latter basically in a 20 percent part-time position for this function. The council is a member of the European Music School Union (EMU), and participate in the Nordic cooperation with Sweden, Finland and Denmark. Recently Iceland and the Faeroe Island were invited to take part in these meetings.

Strongly influenced by the councils’ persistent work throughout the years, the Norwegian Parliament in 1997 passed a paragraph in the new Education Act, Section 13-6:

“All municipalities, either alone or in cooperation with other municipalities shall provide courses in music and other cultural activities for children and young people, organized in association with the school system and local cultural life”.

So far there has been made no regulations related to the law, making it up to the municipality to design their own music and art school. The removal of an earmarked state support to the schools in 2004, led to the discontinuation of the claimed limit of school fee at NOK 1600 (Euro 200) per year. This has led to a rise of the fee in some schools up to NOK 3500 (Euro 450). Particularly based on this the Council last year put forward a suggestion of regulations to the Ministry of Education. The expected change of government these days may imply a dialogue on the matter, since the winning parties during the election campaign had music and art schools as a high priority topic.

The Norwegian Council for Schools of Music and Performing Art receives a major part of its financial support from the Norwegian state. 25 percent is to the organisation, the rest to the development work including information, national conferences, quality improvement, specialist teacher and headmaster training, a national youth music competition, national orchestra and two regional network programs for developing music and art schools as local resource centres. All member municipals pay an annual fee, most of this returned to the regional level to cover cost of meetings and part of salary to their secretaries.

The vision of the organisation is “Music and Art School for all” – a goal far from realised yet. Waiting lists of more than 25 000 applicants prove it still is a long way to go. The schools have, however, throughout the years proved to develop steadily both in quality, quantity and political priority. Our belief is this will continue. The field of culture obviously is getting an increasingly stronger position in our society. The Norwegian Council for Schools of Music and Performing Art obviously has an important role to play, a role the Parliament last year underlined in the description of the organisation as the national competence centre supporting our municipals professionally.

In Norway most of the music schools are both music and art schools, normally described as "kulturskole". Music, however, is the dominating subject in all schools. Today there are 410 members in Norsk kulturskoleråd (The Norwegian Council of Schools of Music and Performing Art). All members have to be municipally owned schools, since these schools by law have to be established in all municipalities.

At the moment we do not have national registration of each disipline, but are working with the issue hoping to develop detailed statistics in near future.

It is not registered in the statistics, but average time offered to each child is 20 minutes. Group teaching is normally offered at basic level, methods are made for teaching 3 - 4 pupils in a lesson of 45 - 60 minutes.