Ontario Boosting Support for Music Education in Schools

Ministry of Education

Province Restoring Musical Instruments and Supporting Music Programs

Toronto, ON – May 2, 2018

Ontario is partnering with Canada’s music industry to refurbish and restore musical instruments in schools, and boost music education programming.

Indira Naidoo-Harris, Minister of Education, was at St. Joseph’s College School in Toronto today to announce that the province is investing in Music Canada’s musical instrument refurbishment program, called The Three R’s Music Program. The funding will improve the inventory of musical instruments available to Ontario’s publicly funded schools through repairs and refurbishments. It will also:

• Increase public engagement in support of music education
• Develop community partnerships across Ontario to increase the capacity and sustainability of music programs
• Raise students’ awareness about different aspects of Canada’s music industry and provide students with access to Canadian artists.

This program is part of the $21 million boost to arts education announced in Ontario’s 2018 Budget. Other programs through this investment will enhance student learning about and through the arts, and will create space to support cultural diversity, including respect for Indigenous peoples’ culture, perspectives, and knowledge.

Investing in arts education is part of the government’s plan to support care, create opportunity and make life more affordable during this period of rapid economic change. The plan includes free prescription drugs for everyone under 25, and 65 or over, through the biggest expansion of medicare in a generation, free tuition for hundreds of thousands of students, a higher minimum wage and better working conditions, and free preschool child care from ages 2.5 to kindergarten.

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