Councils are creating “culture-free ghettos” by giving discounted music tuition to pupils who live in affluent areas, teachers have claimed.
Pupils in “leafy Linlithgow” or Hillfoot are more likely to get the discounts than poorer parts of West Lothian or less affluent Alloa, Holyrood’s education committee was told.
Some councils offer free tuition while those that charge offer discounts to families on benefits. But research by the Music Education Partnership Group found a “depressing” trend for discounts to cluster in more affluent areas.
John Wallace, the group’s chairman, said: “What we’ve seen . . . is that the socioeconomic mindset seems to build up poverty of ambition as well.
“What charging seems to have done in Clackmannanshire is that the ‘people who have’ have got