The Western Cape Education Department (WCED) plans to establish special focus schools for the arts in all education districts of the province, according to the MEC for Education in the Western Cape, Mr Cameron Dugmore.

The MEC has also announced plans to offer an Advanced Certificate in Arts and Culture for teachers needing further training in the arts to meet the requirements of the Revised National Curriculum Statement.

The WCED’s Cape Teaching Institute (CTI) will offer the certificate. The WCED established the CTI in 2002 to provide in-depth, in-service training for teachers employed by the province.

The focus schools for the arts will complement the work of the province’s existing arts and music centres.

Mr Dugmore announced these plans at a function held to deliver musical instruments to the Frank Pietersen Music Centre in Paarl on Monday, 30 August 2004.

Two musicians, Mr Chris Swanepoel and Mr Jattie van Jaarsveld, provided the instruments following a 1 600 km bicycle trek from Johannesburg to Cape Town, during which they encouraged members of the public to donate instruments for music education.

They approached the MEC for assistance in distributing the instruments, and he recommended that they be given to the Frank Pietersen Music Centre.

The late Mr Frank Pietersen started the centre about 25 years ago to provide training for children mainly from disadvantaged communities who did not have access to formal music education at school.

In an address, Mr Dugmore said: "If indeed we are going to grow the Cape as a Learning Home for all our children, we need the energy and the efforts of people like yourselves, to make this a reality."

Since the introduction of Curriculum 2005 and the Revised National Curriculum Statement, Arts and Culture had become a compulsory learning area for all learners in Grades R to 9, he said.

"Previously the arts were regarded as non-essential and were often seen as extra-curricular activity in most of our educational institutions.

"To facilitate the successful implementation of the curriculum, the Cape Teaching Institute will be offering an Advanced Certificate in Arts and Culture to educators who do not have the required qualifications in the arts. The course will focus on musical and visual arts literacy, dance and drama techniques. The WCED is offering bursaries to teachers who have been accepted for this course to be offered in 2005."

The National Curriculum Statement for FET in Schools to be introduced in 2006, makes provision for six arts subjects, namely, Dance Studies, Design, Dramatic Arts, Music and Visual Arts.

The WCED currently has seven arts centres and three music centres that focus on specialised training in music and visual arts in Grades 1 to 12. Two of these centres also offer dance lessons to learners.

"The WCED is working hard and creatively to make the arts accessible to all learners in the province, despite budgetary constraints," Mr Dugmore said.

The committee of heads of provincial education departments (Hedcom) had asked the national Department of Education to investigate the feasibility of establishing dedicated focus schools for the arts, and to draft policy on Dedicated Schools for the Arts in all provinces, Mr Dugmore said.

"The WCED envisages to establish at least one focus school for the arts in each of the seven EMDCs."

Mr Dugmore appealed to schools to support the Tirisano Schools Choral Eisteddfod, to help unify all music competitions and festivals in the province and nationally.

"We believe the Arts represent an invaluable tool in shaping, sustaining and enshrining the culture and heritage of any country. The arts are also indispensable as a means of bridging the barriers that divide our society, of improving the social fabric, and can make a very real contribution to education - both explicit and subliminal around issues such as Aids, cruelty and abuse."

"Our people have always used music and the arts overtly and covertly to express our joys, our sorrows and prayers of life. We have used the arts to liberate ourselves from oppression. It was the freedom songs and the toyi-toyi that sustained our struggles over the years."

"We have come to realise that the universal language of the arts enables us to unite as a nation and to bring people of a diversity of language and heritage together."

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