Music teaching of children in rural areas is set to suffer after Oxfordshire County Music Service announced it was seeking to make cuts to balance its budget.

The failure of a drive to teach more children has prompted the action, which will involve jobs losses and a reduction in lessons.

The service is £190,000 in the red and children in rural and isolated schools are likely to bear the brunt of the cutbacks because it costs more in time and travelling expenses to send teachers there.

Almost one in four school children in Oxfordshire benefit from the service, which provides instrumental tuition in schools and is run by Oxfordshire County Council's education department.

There may be job losses, and funding to buy new instruments could also be cut.

The post of deputy director of music has already been axed and staff have been told to be prudent with paperwork, forms and books.

The service, which is due to move into new £1.3m headquarters at Bayswater Middle School, Headington, Oxford, in April, ran up the budgetary deficit because it failed to achieve its target of teaching five pupils per hour.

About 62 per cent of its funding comes from charges to parents -- £56.70 for 10 half-hour lessons -- with the rest split between grants from the Government and Oxfordshire County Council.

Recommendations to save money include teaching larger groups of children out of school hours, and asking parents to take their children for lessons at large schools rather than providing on-site tuition at every school in Oxfordshire.

One teacher, who asked not to be named, said: "This will have a huge impact on children who live in the sticks. Children who are seven or eight can't carry a cello or a double bass with them long distances. It's ludicrous.

"These proposals seem to be ill thought out.

"Children are tired and restless at the end of school, they won't want to travel a long way then concentrate on something. What if their parents can't take them because they don't have a car or are working?"

The service has 140 full and part-time teachers -- the equivalent of 60 full-time posts -- who train about 7,000 students in small groups.

Government rules prevent the service from teaching more than four children at a time in school hours, but teachers fear managers will get around this by teaching larger groups out of school hours when the restrictions do not apply.

They are also concerned that teachers on full-time contracts may be offered lower-paid, part-time deals.

Director Richard Hallam said everything would be done to protect the quality of the service.

A decision on how to cut costs will be made early next year, after parents have been consulted.