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Memorandum
14
From: Bruce Hunt Dear Dr Gardner, I am writing following the Committee's announcement at the beginning of this month to conduct an inquiry into the Government's decision to phase out financial support given to institutions for equivalent or lower qualifications. As you may know, the City of London Corporation manages the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, one of Europe's leading conservatoires, offering musicians, actors, stage managers and theatre technicians an environment in which to develop as artists and professionals. The City Corporation intends to submit written evidence to the Committee on behalf of the School in the new year but in the meantime, and whilst the Committee is considering who to invite to provide oral evidence, it is worthwhile pointing out that the School believes the Government's proposals will disproportionately affect music conservatoires and drama schools. If an institution is faced with the prospect of teaching students at the regulated fee level but with no teaching grant, it either has to suffer the considerable financial disadvantage or discriminate against students by not admitting them. This is a particular issue for music conservatoires and drama schools where the cost of providing highly specialised one-to-one tuition is considerable. A further consequence of the current proposals which would adversely affect the School and other conservatoires relates to students from a number of EU countries (notably Italy, Greece and Spain) whose qualifications can easily be misinterpreted as having equivalence to UK qualifications when in fact they do not fall within the formal recognised "Bologna" type qualifications. This has knock on consequences which the School would be happy to explain. I believe that the Committee has scheduled to hear oral evidence from the Open University and Birkbeck College early in the new year and whilst I am sure they will share some concerns with GSMD, I would not expect the particular impact on conservatoires to be covered. GSMD would therefore be very happy to appear before the Committee to detail its concerns if that were considered helpful. Please feel free to contact me should you wish to discuss this any further. Yours sincerely, Bruce Bruce Hunt
December 2007 Tel: 020 7332
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