Arts and Cultural Education in Iceland : Professor Anne Bamford

training of senior secondary arts teachers, the opposite is true, with the students mainly
receiving theoretical training with limited or no practical classroom application.
The reductions in the time and scope of arts and cultural education within general teacher
education have made the teacher education institutions have to develop a sharper focus for
their courses. There has been a steady decline in the amount of arts and cultural education
received by trainee teachers. For example, for pre-school teacher education, the total number of
compulsory ECTs (credit points) for the arts in 2000-01 academic year intake was 27. By 2009-10
this had fallen to 23 ECTs. While this drop is regrettable, the picture is even more pronounced in
the compulsory, compulsory school training. In this course, there were 8ects compulsory for all
trainee teachers for arts and cultural education but no compulsory units by 2009-2010. While it
could be argued that the compulsory units have (at least in part) been replaced by more optional
units (up to 20 ECTs open choice for general teachers and 80 for specialist teachers) this falls
short of a uniform cultural education for all teachers (as is increasingly being considered a
requirement for teachers in the EU). 34 Some respondents blamed the high cost of preparing arts
educators as the reason why courses had been reduced, as is evident in the following comment:
The answer is better education for the teachers... but this is changing fast, to get the artists in the schools costs
money... we should discuss how to do this in a cheaper way... people don't know what were doing, think
perhaps we're only decorating... it's not the conditions only but the mind… They [University of Akureyri] shut the
music teachers dept. down 2006 because of cost. Only three people were allowed to finish the programme...
only 2 general music teachers with education, 2 others interested.
It was widely reported that there was a shortage of qualified teachers in the arts, especially
in the woodcraft and music areas. As stated by the General Music-Teachers Association; “There
is a lack of qualified teachers. Teachers need to be qualified.” And the following comment from
the arts academy; "The most important thing in Iceland is to improve the general music teacher
education". In music particularly, this shortfall of teachers is being relieved by international
teachers, as the following examples shows:
Music school teachers are very international. For example, 3 teachers come from Poland; 3 come from Estonia;
and one comes from Hungary. It is more difficult to get teachers in the regional locations and this is where
teachers are most likely to come from any part of the world. Icelandic music is built by foreigners e.g. Austrians,
Czech, Hungarian, Finnish musicians. The rock and pop music area seemed to be one where there was a
particular shortage of teachers. Pop and rock music is a growing area. Every child wants to be a star in a rock
band.
Compulsory schools do not have enough music in them. No one wants the hard job of teaching music in the
compulsory school. These precious music teachers will not do it; nobody wants to do it. There is also a lack of
dance and drama and this is a big problem. Singing is also a problem though it depends on the individual school
and their individual system. Music schools should be made to have to teach in the compulsory schools.
We would like to have more dance, but it is difficult to get a teacher...
70% of teachers are foreigners – from Scotland, Finland Spain, and Lithuania. This is however changing now.
Five Icelanders have called for a job this fall. This has never happened before.
Pop and jazz has been getting more popular, but difficult to get teachers in these areas. Two dance teachers live
in Ísafjöður, one from Boston and one from Finland. The American can't teach all styles like the Icelanders or the
Fins.
Figure 5.2.1 shows that 68% of respondents felt that there was insufficient professional
development. Similarly, 25% had difficulties with recruiting qualified staff, while 25% felt that
teacher education did not provide ‘good preparation’ for teachers.
34 Based on figures provided by Anna Kristín Sigurðardóttir Head of the Faculty of Teacher Education at the University of
Iceland, February 2009.
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