In Germany, there are independent extracurricular institutions and offers of cultural (youth) education (e.g. music schools, youth art schools, interdisciplinary cultural workshops, media centres), which are partly publicly funded, partly privately or with mixed funding. These out-of-school cultural education and cultural pedagogy programmes are gaining in importance and increasing in quality and scope. New concepts and institutions, which increasingly combine classical cultural education with the use of new media, have been established primarily by non-governmental institutions with the support of the public sector. The promotion of cultural education for children and young people has received a significant boost since this task was enshrined in § 11 of the Child and Youth Services Act (1991).
The Federal Association for Cultural Child and Youth Education (Bundesvereinigung Kulturelle Kinder- und Jugendbildung BKJ e. V.) is the umbrella organisation for cultural education in Germany. More than 50 nationwide specialist organisations and state associations have joined together in the BKJ. Various umbrella and professional associations exist in Germany for the various institutions: the Association of German Music Schools with its 16 federal state associations is the municipal professional and sponsoring association of the approximately 930 public music schools in Germany; and 450 independent music schools have joined together in the Federal Association of Independent Music Schools. The Federal Association of Youth Art Schools and Cultural Pedagogical Institutions (bjke) represents 400 youth art schools and cultural educational institutions nationwide since 1983 through its regional working groups and regional associations.
Statistical data are available for the music schools and adult education centres. In 2017, 1.5 million pupils were taught at 930 public music schools in Germany. The majority (85 %) of them were under 19 years of
Statistical data are available for the music schools and the adult education centres: In 2019, 1.5 million pupils were taught at 929 public music schools in Germany. At 83%, the majority of them were under 19 years of age at that time. In relation to the population of the same age, the proportion of learners aged 19 and under at public music schools nationwide was 8.7%. The Federal Association of Independent Music Schools currently estimates that there are approximately 200 000 students in 450 member music schools (for comparison, 2016: 158,000 music students in 349 member music schools).55 At 852 of 870 Adult Education Centres in Germany, a total of 478 000 course enrollments in the programme area “Culture and Design” were counted for the year 2020 (for comparison, in 2017: at 883 of 895 Adult Education Centres, a total of 830 000 course enrollments). This corresponds to a share of 13.0 percent of all course enrollments.
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