THE EDITOR, Sir:

While waiting on the early evening news on television, I happen to watch TVJ's Schools' Challenge Quiz which precedes the newscast.

I am, however, disquieted by the jaundiced slant of the questions asked in the subject area 'music'. There seems to be a deliberate attempt to relegate our youngsters to the reggae-pop-dancehall ambit and limit their exposure to the world of Western art music, our own folk music, jazz, and the marvellous music written for the stage and screen.

It seems apparent that the people responsible for compiling the questions have absolutely no cultivated musical tradition and are severely hampered by their exposure to the reggae/dancehall only and have had no contact with the sophisticated genres of the symphony, the concerto, or the fugue of Western European culture.

To consider it more important for our youth to know the release year of some dancehall album, rather than knowing why Beethoven destroyed the title page of his Third Symphony, is absolutely absurd.

If the taste of the masses is to be the sole criterion when judging merit, we can expect to remain residual slaves in the dancehall for ever. May God help us!

We like to laud and magnify our 'music' as a great feature of Jamaican national pride, so I do hope that better care, thought, and breadth will be taken when planning policy in the future.

DAVID JOHNS

djohns325@gmail.com