Submission to the

REVIEW OF HIGHER EDUCATION FUNDING AND POLICY

by

MELBA MEMORIAL CONSERVATORIUM OF MUSIC

The Melba Memorial Conservatorium of Music is a private non-profit provider of higher education in music. It was established in 1895, and can justifiably claim to have been in continuous operation longer than any other tertiary music school in Australia¹ .

In 1994 the Conservatorium signed an affiliation agreement with Victoria University of Technology, under the terms of which both institutions retain their separate corporate and fiscal identities, but agree to collaborate in the field of music education "in the interests...especially of those people who live and work in the Western Metropolitan Region of Melbourne".

In a submission already forwarded to the Review Committee, the University argued that, for a number of reasons, any proposal to provide public funding to private providers should be agreed to only after "careful consideration"; however, the Summary of Main Points at the end of that submission briefly stated that there should be "no public funding made available to private providers of higher education"². The University has affirmed to us that that brief statement was intended to apply only to institutions providing higher education for profit, and not to a non-profit institution such as the Melba Conservatorium, which offers a unique and valuable alternative to the music courses in universities.

The Melba Conservatorium believes that public funding should be made available to support the work of private, non-profit providers of higher education, in any case where, in a particular field or fields, such an institution can demonstrate that it makes a unique contribution to the variety of provision needed. The Conservatorium understands that the University supports this view, at least in as far as it applies to the Conservatorium.

Music performance is a special case: in practically no other field is there such disparity between the opportunities young people have to prepare for entry to higher education; and for that reason and because of the nature of performance itself, some talented students need to be nurtured in special circumstances. The Melba Conservatorium makes a special contribution to the range of provision required, and should therefore be supported by public funding, especially in the interests of equity of access. There are several ways in which this support might be made available..

What follows develops these points.

The special case of music performance

Musical talent (and especially vocal talent - the principal, but not sole, concern of the Conservatorium) is not distributed according to socio-economic class, ethnic background or regional domicile. The relevant variable responsive to those differences is the opportunity for talent to develop. Because the development of musical talent relies very heavily on expensive one-to-one teaching, and on appropriate facilities and cultural opportunities, the average standard of musical performance achieved by secondary students from privileged backgrounds considerably exceeds the average standard achieved by those whose opportunities have been, by comparison, meagre. In practically no other field is this difference so marked, with the consequence that HECS funded places in music performance are disproportionately occupied by students whose secondary years were advantaged.

In another way, too, higher education in music performance is a special educational case. There are other fields, eg teaching, and the practice of the bar, in which learners must confront audiences in a highly complex environment; but it is only in musical (and perhaps dramatic) performance that the learner must face that daunting challenge from the outset. For this reason, some undergraduates need the support of a small, close-knit, nurturing and supportive learning environment, for without it their talent withers.

The special contribution of the Melba Conservatorium

The Melba Conservatorium provides an undergraduate program leading to the Diploma of Music (now awarded by Victoria University, but previously accredited by the former Victorian Post-Secondary Commission on the advice of a special committee convened by the University of Melbourne), and a fourth year of study leading to the degree of Bachelor of Music of Victoria University. It also conducts a one semester bridging program for talented persons who lack the pre-requisites to begin higher education in music; this program is accredited by the State Training Board, and its graduates are accepted by both the Melba and the universities.

The Conservatorium is committed to excellence: its standards are guaranteed by the involvement of professionals and of teachers from other tertiary music institutions in the development and monitoring of its programs, and in the practical examination of its students; and its graduates are successful in the profession.

Among the uniquely valuable features of the Melba are -

• its articulated continuum of programs, through which talented persons may proceed from late entry to music studies (ie without music credentials at upper secondary level) to the completion of an undergraduate performance degree, with convenient exit stages and awards;

• its many decades of experience and success in overcoming the disadvantages of talented people from musically underprivileged backgrounds, and of those who at a late stage transfer from other courses or who decide to pursue a musical career after some years in another occupation, eg the celebrated aboriginal tenor, Harold Blair, who trained at the Melba; and a current student who gave up banking for music and has already been accepted in the chorus of Opera Australia;

• its size (about eighty full course students) and its tradition and organisational arrangements, which are perceived by both students and visitors to be uniquely supportive - there are current examples of students who for this reason chose to pay fees at the Melba rather than take up an offered HECS place at a university, or who transferred to the Melba after a period of success in HECS funded places elsewhere;

• its student mix: about forty per cent of students are from the Western Metropolitan Region of Melbourne; and more than half of all students themselves earn the money to pay their course fees;

• its particular teaching strengths, especially in vocal performance, where it preserves an unbroken teacher student continuity stretching from Dame Nellie Melba (who taught at this Conservatorium between 1915 and 1931) through Clive Carey and Joan Arnold, OBE, to the present Director.

The provision of Commonwealth funding

Because it makes a unique contribution to the necessary variety of provision in higher education for music performance; because it is a registered non-profit organisation; because it is open to public and peer scrutiny; and, most importantly, because its students deserve help, public funding should be made available to support the work of the Melba Conservatorium. Public funding could be provided in various ways, and the most appropriate should be the subject of further consultation. Among the possibilities are, for example:

• direct funding based on WSU load etc, as for universities;
• supplementary funding to allow fees to be maintained at present levels, so that self supporting students are not excluded in a time of shrinking employment opportunities for youth;
• the provision of (and/or guaranteeing of) a scholarship and loan fund for students;
• grants for capital purposes.

^1. The Conservatorium was established by the University of Melbourne in 1895, but in 1900 the Director (Marshall-Hall) and his key staff and students left the University, which had then to re-establish its own Conservatorium.

^2. Victoria University of Technology, Submission to the Review of Higher Education Financing and Policy, April 1977, pp 13 and 18.

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