New developments in the music school legislation of various cantons

Marianne Wälchli Music education is caught between culture and education, and when drafting a new music school law, the canton's law on the promotion of culture and primary education must also be taken into account. An ideal music school law lays the foundation for ensuring that as many children and young people as possible can attend music lessons outside of school, either individually or in groups, and that children from less educated and financially weaker families are not disadvantaged. It ensures transparent and fair employment conditions, regulates quality assurance and lays the foundation for optimal talent development. Quality assurance also includes ensuring that as many music school teachers as possible have both artistic and pedagogical qualifications, i.e. a Master of Arts in Music Education or an equivalent diploma.

The most wonderful employment conditions on paper are of no use if timetables only allow music lessons between 4pm and 7pm, for example, meaning that music teachers cannot get a reasonable number of lessons per week. It is therefore crucial that elementary school and music schools negotiate sensibly with each other.
Music lessons are ideally one-to-one lessons given by highly qualified teachers. And you need enough suitable classrooms for the lessons. It is obvious that this is cost-intensive. And even though it is now generally known how important music lessons are for mental and emotional development, there are supposedly resourceful cost-cutters who cut the number of minutes per child to such an extent that meaningful lessons are no longer possible. Or they prescribe group lessons where it is not practicable. In such situations, the SMPV must stand up for the members affected.

In the following sections, I would like to look at the development of music school legislation in individual cantons:

Ticino
The latest developments in the canton of Ticino give music teachers and students hope for the future.
As a reminder, the "100 giorni per la musica" initiative, which calls for music lessons for children and young people to be subsidized, as stipulated in Article 67a of the Federal Constitution, was submitted in 2023 by an initiative committee including SMPV member Emilio Pozzi. At the moment, the canton of Ticino only covers around 25% of the costs of recognized music schools. This means that parents of music students have to bear around 75% of the costs themselves, while parents in the rest of Switzerland pay an average of just over 30%. Children and young people from financially weaker families are thus effectively excluded from extracurricular music lessons, which clearly contradicts Article 67a.
In the first week of August, it was announced that the Ticino State Council had drawn up a counter-proposal in collaboration with the initiative committee.
The government is of the opinion that a law on extracurricular music lessons, as called for by the initiative committee, "is not suitable or appropriate to provide a satisfactory response to the common challenges raised by the initiative". The counter-proposal, on the other hand, provides for a partial amendment to the Cultural Promotion Act, which includes the following points, among others:

• An independent quality commission is to be set up to define the quality criteria that a music school must fulfill in order to receive subsidies.
• Extracurricular music lessons for children and young people up to the end of compulsory schooling or for young adults up to the age of 25 if they are in education should be substantially subsidized.
• Music students from low-income families are to receive additional support.
• Cantonal public schools should be able to use their premises for music lessons free of charge.

For the trial phase from 2026 - 2028, the government expects annual recurring costs totaling 1.5 million. The costs would be borne entirely by the Swisslos Fund during this trial phase.
If this counter-proposal is adopted by Parliament, the initiative committee is prepared to withdraw the initiative. It is therefore possible that the situation for music students and teachers in the canton of Ticino will improve massively as early as 2026!

Thurgau
A revised music school ordinance came into force in the canton of Thurgau on January 1, 2024. The road to this was described as "long and emotional".
In June 2018, Thurgau's public education authority set up a working group made up of representatives from the canton and the Thurgau Music Schools Association (VMTG) with the aim of "reviewing the funding and quality assurance of music schools". The board of the SMPV Thurgau also took part in the consultation and demanded, among other things, that lessons for young adults in training should be subsidized up to the age of 25 (instead of 20), which was unfortunately not approved. In this respect, music students in Ticino could soon be in a better position than those in Thurgau.
The increase in the proportion of qualified music teachers desired by the SMPV is a positive development. This must now be at least two thirds instead of half. As before, the salary tables for salary bands 2 and 3 of the elementary school apply to music teachers, whereby salary category A applies to qualified teachers and category B to non-qualified teachers.
Another significant innovation is the division of the cantonal contribution into a flat-rate salary per lesson and a flat-rate operating fee with a variable component, as music schools under public law are allowed to use school premises free of charge, whereas music schools organized under private law have to pay for classrooms. The canton anticipates additional annual costs of around CHF 600,000.
Although not all the demands and wishes of the music schools were met, the completely revised music school ordinance can be described as an important "milestone" for music education in the canton of Thurgau.

Grisons
Here, music school legislation is regulated in the Cultural Promotion Act. When this came into force in 2018, it brought a clear improvement for music schools. The regions were obliged to provide a comprehensive range of singing and music schools. To this end, the canton supports the music schools annually with an additional CHF 410,000 on top of the regions' contributions of around CHF 550,000.
However, the SMPV OSO would like to optimize details in the implementation of the law. For example, the canton sometimes does not contribute the 30% stipulated in the ordinance to the music school costs due to the method of calculation with flat rates for pupils, but only 25%, and the municipalities then have to bear the deficit even though the canton has not exhausted its budget. Secondly, the SMPV OSO is bothered by the fact that the salary of music teachers with a full-time workload corresponds to the salary of primary school teachers with a full-time workload, but that the music teacher lesson lasts 60 minutes, while the primary school teacher lesson is only 45 minutes long, meaning that music teachers actually earn 25% less.