More pupils took part in instrumental music lessons in Scottish schools in 2024/25 than ever before, according to a new report published by the Improvement Service.
The National Instrumental Music Survey found that over 70,000 pupils, equal to 10.1% of the school roll, participated in lessons. This represents a 6% year-on-year increase.
The survey is carried out annually by the Improvement Service on behalf of the Heads of Instrumental Tuition Scotland (HITS). It examines the performance of instrumental music services (IMS) across several areas including fees and charges, participation numbers, equality of access, instrument uptake, instructor and tutor numbers, service delivery costs, and extra-curricular additional activities.
In addition to the record number of pupils participating, the key findings for 2024/25 were:
- Only five local authorities were able to provide lessons to all interested pupils. Most areas maintain waiting lists.
- Pupils from the most deprived areas of Scotland were over-represented within instrumental music services (although not all local authorities could return this data). 22.4% of IMS pupils were from the 20% most deprived communities, compared to 21.6% of all school-aged children and young people.
- Instructor numbers grew in 2024/25. However, nationally only one additional FTE (full time equivalent) instructor was added and the rate of growth (0.2%) was lower than the growth in pupil numbers. Instructor FTEs remain 3% lower than in 21013/14.
- It costs £38 million to deliver instrumental music services. For the local authorities able to provide data for this and last year, costs decreased in both cash and real terms.
The full survey report is available on the Improvement Service website.
A dashboard presenting all the data collected in the survey is also available.
Instrumental music is a discretionary service provided by all local authorities in Scotland and is separate to the music curriculum taught within the classroom. The National Instrumental Music Survey concentrates solely on these discretionary services, outwith Youth Music Initiative (YMI) funded tuition, and the music curriculum.