When the International Association for Music Education (ISME) held its conference in Tampa Florida in 1994, nine Caribbean music educators attended. But the enthusiasm with which they greeted the various events waned when the time came for ISME's national associations to meet. There was no such association in the Caribbean. There were no regional music associations of any kind despite the many commonalities that exist in musical cultures and education systems across the region.

During the last decade several Caribbean countries have focused much of their resources and energy on developing national curricula. Jamaica has been prominent among them with the Reform of Secondary Education (ROSE) project, which developed curricula first for five subjects, and later for four more subjects, among them music. More recently the development of a primary music curriculum and the piloting of a syllabus in music by the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) have added significantly to the number of innovations that school music faces.

The Reform of Secondary Education (ROSE) takes as its main objective the provision of a national curriculum for grades 7–9 in Jamaica's secondary schools. Where ROSE does not focus primarily on major innovations in curriculum content, the new curriculum emphasizes changes in teaching methodology intended to foster innovative thinking, critical thinking, divergent thinking, decision making, group work, and problem-solving skills (ROSE 1993).

The articles in this book were first presented as papers at EduVision 1 2003, an international conference on teacher education and technology. The conference, which took place in Montego Bay, Jamaica, was hosted by the Institute of Education, University of the West Indies; the Ministry of Education, Youth and Culture; and the Jamaica Teachers Association and was a visible manifestation of a partnership that had long existed.

The importance of the arts in education has been argued for decades. Underlying many of the arguments in favour of arts education is the belief that if education focuses exclusively and predominantly on one mode of cognition- that is the conceptual- then schools are denying children essential areas of human development. Arts educators have pointed to the value of the arts describing them as "an education of the senses" (Witkin 1974), and a means to developing aesthetic behaviours such as perceiving, reacting and valuing (Reimer 1971).

While there has been increasing interest in the process of becoming a teacher,very little attention has been paid to the process of becoming a teacher educator. Yet teachers of teachers go through the same process as teachers and experience similar influences that shape the kind of teacher educator they become. Important aspects of the learning process for teacher educators include becoming sensitive to their role and the special responsibilities entailed.

The expressive arts have long been a valued part of the Caribbean culture. In the last two to three decades in particular, there has been growing belief that the arts are integral to the development of personal and national identity. Academics and politicians see the arts as tools for nation building, even if at times the processes needed to develop artistic sensibilities and artistic enterprises are given less attention and financial support than they warrant.

This paper assumes that the preparation, orientation and induction of new teacher educators who teach prospective teachers is as important as the preparation of prospective teachers, and is thus worthy of careful scrutiny and analysis.

There needs to be a balance between a child-centred and teacher-directed approach in education, where the learner is seen as a candle to be lit rather than a container to be filled. 
(Jonathan Stephens 1995:13) 
 
 
 
 

The Commonwealth Caribbean comprises a diversified population spread over a geographically large area. Having been colonies, the countries of the Commonwealth Caribbean inherited a system of education modelled in education in the 19th-century Britain. Although most of these countries gained political independence from Britain during the past 30 to 40 years, and major changes have been made in education, commonalities continue to exist in the aims, structure, and management of education systems-and commonalities exist therefore in music education.