Fresh bid for music funding

CLARE Music Education Partnership will be hoping it’s a case of third time lucky when it makes a renewed bid for a €200,000 music teaching allocation.
It follows the most recent setback when refused funding from Music Generation, a programme co-founded by U2.
Music Generation aims to provide up to €7m to education initiatives in Ireland and this move inspired County Clare Vocational Education Committee to form Clare Music Education Partnership. It brought together Maoin Cheoil an Chláir, University of Limerick and other such interests to formulate a bid.
Dr Sean Conlan, education officer with the vocational education committee, told this month’s meeting their most recent application was unsuccessful. Their application received a score of 71% across the three key evaluative measures – core values, feasibility and value for money.
He added that a further round of applications will be announced in the autumn and successful projects will each receive a maximum grant allocation of €200,000 annually over three years.
Mr Conlon explained this has to be co-funded at local level and, after three years, the Music Education Partnership is expected to be in a position to self-finance its operation with collaborative funding from the Department of Education and Skills.