MUSIC EDUCATION
This, of course, entirely depends upon what is meant by Music Education. Every snippet of music we hear and see performed in the media is educational in one way or another. But then the phrase "genre" tends to rear its ugly head.
I know teenagers who would not dare admit to liking classical or jazz music for fear of being ridiculed by their peers. So they keep it quiet about it, thereby perpetrating the myth that the only thing worth listening to is something in the pop charts!
GRADED EXAMINATIONS
The grade exam system could be a potent force for good in the music world. I do not know how it runs in the rest of the U.K. but in my county generally it's about as useful as a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. It suffers from a derivative of the same bums-on-seats mentality that plagues education as a whole. Nothing seems to matter but possession the actual piece of paper itself. The problem is that students are taught the 3 tunes and the few scales required for a particular grade, to the exclusion of everything else. The exam is then taken and passed, at which point the student is moved to the next 3 tunes and the next group of scales etc, seemingly actively encouraged to completely forget the knowledge gained in the previous grade. But they did not reach a "grade", they learned 3 tunes and a few scales. There is a vast difference. If that same student is presented with the music for one of the other tunes of the previous grade, they are lost. And, pretty soon, they forget how to play the very tunes they did learn! I am very aware that there are exceptions; students who transcend the system, and make it. I'm more interested in the whole picture. If grades are to fulfil the function for which they were designed, students should be taught to a certain level of competency before even considering taking a graded exam. Ideally, they should be handed the tune/scale list on the day of the exam, this would make pretty damned certain that they are truly at the required level. Parents, naturally, have a built-in desire to see their children do well. And exams and qualifications are their yardstick. So they will actively encourage participation. All very commendable. They assume that if their child passes, say, a grade 4 exam, then their child is at a grade 4 level of competency. All too often this is some distance short of the truth.