MUSICAL EDUCATION IN MACEDONIA, EXPERIENCES AND DIRECTIONS FOR THE FUTURE
Music as a spiritual creation of the human being,
is an important factor in the esthetic education and plays a
significant role in the culture of living.
Music as an important factor in the education of
the child’s person, takes a pertinent place in the educational
process.
The observation of the period behind us shows us
that immense efforts were made to improve the musical education and
its position in the society. Today, students can get musical education
in 16 primary and four secondary schools.
As a part of the general educational system,
artistic education has undergone several system reforms. The current
insight based on the information and the experiences of the foregoing
period shows that there is a need for certain changes in order to keep
pace with the contemporary educational trends of more reasonable and
efficient education.
With respect to the number of the students in the
primary musical education, we belong to undeveloped countries. Despite
this statistics, this region is abundant with talented children.
Guided by their dedicated teachers, they managed to make an
exceptional breakthrough and incited interest not only in our country,
but also attracted the attention of the European musical public. These
achievements are not accidental. In the nineteen seventies, a group of
musicians started serious changes of the standards in the musical
education and started a process that is until continuing today. A
large number of young musicians were educated and today they work as
pedagogues in the musical schools, as orchestra musicians, members of
the Macedonian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Opera, show business
artists or amateur-lovers or music. Most of the teaching staff in the
musical schools has university degrees although in some of the schools
out of Skopje some instrument teachers are deficient. For a start,
this represents a guarantee for effective and quality education.
Certainly, MBUC “Ilija Nikolovski Luj”, the
largest institution of its type in the Republic of Macedonia, had the
dominant role in all the initiatives taken for changes. It consists of
the musical and ballet primary and secondary schools.
The results of the work of MBUC include:
- organization of a large number of seminars with eminent
pedagogues whose goal was education of the students and the
teachers and bettering of their results;
- participation in competitions in our country, in former
Yugoslavia and in international competition;
- participation on in various festivals and events;
- presentation of the Macedonian musical culture with concerts in
several European countries such as Italy, France, Britain,
Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Turkey;
- participation in the media and so becoming an established part
of the cultural life of Skopje and Macedonia;
The large number of prizes won together with the
improved status of the musical education in our country secured
recognition of our musical pedagogy and our students become real
little ambassadors of the Macedonian musical culture.
Aside from the evident growth of the musical
education, today we face problems of essential importance for normal
execution of the classes such as superannuated instruments, lack of
professional literature, lack of other educational devices and lack of
school books in Macedonian. We continually refer to this problem, but
despite the permanent exertion, the solution is still to come.
Our present observations and experiences are a good
lead for further improvement of the musical education. Taking into
account that we live and work in a small country with modest material
means, i see the future in stimulating private initiative, starting
new musical schools, using various donations, cooperation with
foundations. All this should help the discovery, the training and the
organized presentation of the talented.
At the end, i would like to confer my message to
the coming generations full of enthusiasm and desire for improvement.
Those are the young people in whom we invested all our knowledge and
skill. We created a new generation, which has to continue along the
upward line of success.
My message to the young in the new millennium would
be:
You will have the opportunity to go further, to
improve and to be creators of your future. Your youth is your
advantage. The way you choose will be yours and it is paved with
thousands of wishes, desires, hopes and love.
The future is before. Stride bravely forward.
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