Arts education : are the problems the same across five countries? : preservice teachers' perceptions of the problems to teaching arts education in primary schools in five countries

![CDATA[Arts educators around the world know well the importance of a strong arts education in the lives of children. And this importance is often reflected in the arts policies of education departments, schools and universities. However the actual practice of arts education in primary schools falls far short of the policy. Problems identified as impacting on the teaching of music, dance, drama and visual arts include the teacher’s lack of knowledge about the syllabus requirements, the teacher’s lack of time to prepare effective arts lessons, the perceived lack of time in the teaching day, lack of priority for arts education, the teacher’s lack of personal arts experiences and the lack of adequate arts resources within the schools. This study examines preservice teachers’ perceptions of these problems to teaching arts education, across five countries. The results indicate that about two-thirds of the sampled students agreed or agreed strongly that these six problems impacted on arts teaching in primary schools. Responses were fairly similar across all five countries, except in relation to Visual Arts education, where students from Australia (NSW) did not indicate as strongly that these problems were important compared with those from Namibia, South Africa and Ireland. The paper concludes with recommendations to address these problems.]]