http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-25420409

This is an audio recording, BTW.

It was pretty sparse when I was in school. It might be extinct now in most state schools. It could be relatively costly to teach. Unless you have parents who will help you learn you are pretty much on your own.

Music is taught, but the range and scope is limiting. A friend who teaches guitar is limited to classical music, so if a child is really interested in taking music to a higher level, he tells them that they have to be interested in that kind of music to progress in the school.

Sadly, my experience of music lessons in the 1980s is little different. My guitar lessons were all orientated towards classical music, as mere my violin lessons. It got off-putting after a while as the music I was hearing from guitars anywhere else in my life was rock, jazz or whatever was on the radio. That’s what I wanted to play.

Neither are proper computing skills, I don't see being able to drop the bass or pull off a drum solo as a necessary life skill for employment however

Yes but they can prepare the person for a life of busking!

While most education has to be practical in future employment but much of what we are taught at school is never used afterwards. Why can't we have some music classes that are more modern than simple classical guitar or the recorder? After a couple of years of that it can put kids off music forever.