Arts and Cultural Education in Iceland : Professor Anne Bamford

eginners; pedagogical training; communication and observation of teachers inside and outside
schools. This course started 2 years ago as extensions of the music programme, but less than
50% of the students take this pathway.
It was also argued that the lack of distance education courses in the arts limited professional
development.
To get qualified the music teachers have to go to Reykjavík for qualification. Why can music teachers not get
qualifications without going to day school in Reykjavik? This appears really important point. This has been an
option for general teachers so why not in music?
The counter position though argued that a distance mode may not work for the arts, as the
following quotes suggest:
We don’t do distance learning. I don’t think it works for this type of learning . I am personally
into it but it’s no good for arts education. We tried it and student evaluations were very low.
We have given it up in music.
Distance education is good, but difficult to do in the arts – getting the students for 2-3 weeks a year for 2-3
hours, otherwise the only contact is through the computer.
While there is a commitment to research at the policy level, there is less current research
activity from the teacher education sector itself. Within the teacher education institutions for
primary teachers and the early years of high school, research appears to receive little priority.
5.3 Quality monitoring
‣ The arts educational community in Iceland needs to consider methods of quality
assurance that are appropriate in this context
Within Iceland there are claims of good quality and equally strong claims of falling quality.
The contention of this research would be that in a general sense and compared to other
countries, Iceland has a strong commitment to the arts and the quality is strong.
To ensure this continues to be the case and that areas that can be enhanced receive
adequate attention, ongoing systems of quality monitoring should be considered. Peer
evaluation and international benchmarking should become a regular part of Icelandic arts and
cultural education.
There are laws that say that every school should be doing the arts but there is so much decentralisation that we
do not know if everyone is following it, are they implementing it; there is no monitoring. The law needs to
emphasise checking a lot more. We are waiting for the new curriculum.
All types of arts education should be evaluated, including what occurs in after school
activities. Importantly, young people need to be involved in quality monitoring and the results of
such monitoring need to be shared with service users and parents. Informally, especially in
smaller communities, a great deal of informal evaluation does occur and pupils and parents will
make choices in terms of perceived quality, as the following quote suggests:
The parents wouldn't know, but people do ask around. The policy is that the schools should have self evaluation
policy in addition to the external evaluation that is done. Annually, we can only externally evaluate few schools –
e.g. sample 4-5 preschools and 3-4 compulsory schools. There is no official ranking of schools. There is however
more student evaluation in the compulsory schools (standardized tests).
Parents in the focus groups were keen to gain more information about quality and saw
quality as being an important issue:
We should focus on the main things and make sure students get quality teaching.
I want my children to have a choice and be taught properly
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