Certificate for Music Educators (CME) qualification
The value of the CME needs to be communicated more clearly to the profession and disability mentioned more specifically says DM North East Associate Michael Dollan.
I visited the discussion session on the new level 4 Certificate for Music Educators (or CME), hoping to end up in a position to determine whether it was a valuable addition to the word of music education. I wanted to understand it’s role in the development of the music education workforce, to become enthused about its content and ultimately to be able to decide if it was a qualification I may choose to study myself, or advocate to the organisations I work with.
One of the things I had been keen to find out, having been part of the consultation of the qualification for Cultural Sector workers (the level 3 qualification this is in addition to) was how the qualification covered work with disabled children and young people as in the consultation I contributed to the word ‘disability’ was not mentioned once in the entire document! Unfortunately I didn’t get that information from the session, I did learn about the history of the qualification, and something about small areas of content within it but nothing about why it would be a helpful qualification to possess, or what one may learn from it that would make it beneficial to one’s practice.
The gist of the Q+A afterwards was people asking about its benefits to or requirement for a workforce where the answers from the podium were along the lines of ‘that depends on how people take it up and the value they attach to it.’ Hopefully future information on the CME will be able to outline its purpose more clearly, and clearly address how it intends to promote and support work with disabled people.