RECENT developments imply that ANU vice-chancellor Ian Young has made compromises on the proposal, which endeavours to sack all 32 music educators, abolish institutionalised instrumental tuition, and turn the prestigious ANU BMus degree into a mediocre children’s course.

Media outlets stated that these compromises were a win for the School of Music.

This is entirely false.

Young has made just two small adjustments: The first was a minor rewording to the clause detailing how faculty would be terminated.

Regardless, Young was required by law to make the amendment, due to a dispute lodged by the Education Union (NTEU), threatening legal action on the premise that the proposal violated the enterprise bargaining agreement.

This adjustment does not change the fact that 32 staff will be sacked. Even though they are able to reapply for new positions, I believe there’s a slim chance of any terminated re-applicants being successful.

The ANU wants “portfolio” teachers: jacks-of-all-trades, but masters of none; cheap teachers who can spread thin across various instruments and subjects. Students will need to travel and find teachers in other cities; there will be nobody worth learning from in Canberra.

The second adjustment that Young made – and he was quite proud to publicise it – was to instigate what is essentially a bribe for students, with money that he has not even obtained yet, and may never.

Previously, Young swore by the benefits and opportunities the “new $600 per semester Professional Development Allowance” will offer students.

There are no benefits.

The standard hourly tuition price for a master musician starts at $100 per hour – much more than the university is paying them. $600 buys half the value of tuition students currently receive, and half of what they pay in course fees – and the course fees will not decrease.

In two tense interviews, Young blusters on about how students can find ways to supplement their PDA beyond the value they receive now.

Allow me to translate: Young is saying that our parents should cough up some cash, or we should work more jobs to pay for it.

Few students have those options. Many are financially independent, and already working, performing professionally and teaching to survive.

In more recent media, it appears Chris Peters (who resigned from the SoM board in disgust at Young’s proposal, and that it had not passed the board first) is willing to search for community benefactors, with a funding target of $2 million.

This is precisely what Young wants. Rather than standing up for his university and appealing to the Government for the funding we need, he would rather have others find the money for him. It is a part of his published 10-year-plan for the ANU that we would come to rely more on community benefactors than Government funding.

This (unconfirmed) funding resource allowed Young to disperse the “smokescreen”, as one SoM faculty member called it, that the problem is fixed, by offering to use it to supplement PDA.

The students, the staff, and the community demand that the entire proposal be withdrawn immediately. We are not the scapegoat.

We will not back down.