As reported in The Telegraph last week, a report by Labour into the cuts announced by George Osborne shows that funding cuts are set to hit major universities and Higher Edcuation institutions, in particular those offering only courses in the arts.
In a list that makes grim reading, universities such as Leeds, Manchester and Nottingham Trent are set to suffer massive cuts in public funding, whilst the Royal College of Music, the Royal College of Music and the Royal Northern College of Music, Leeds College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama will receive no public funding at all. Even the hallow’d institutions of Oxford and Cambridge will be hit.
Taking into account the proposed scrapping of caps on tuition fees, what this means overall for the nurturing of the country’s artistic future is uncomfortable to consider…
This is very worrying. What of the arts? Education?
“If you want to measure the spiritual depth of society, make sure to mark its music.” -Plato
It’s true: bearing in mind the threats to county music provision, the withdrawal of funding to arts organisations, and now this: the future for the artistic future of the UK looks pretty bleak… If Plato were alive, he’d be turning in his cave.