TNAG-1073-FCO40-1323-Policy-of-the-Government-of-Hong-Kong-on-education-including-1981 — Page 366

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library organisation and control, important though these may be.

Educational television

7.20

An important initiative of the Education Department has been

the development of an educational television (ETV) service, now produced

with the technical assistance of Radio Television Hong Kong. This

service is making a considerable impact on the quality of education in

the classroom, comparing favourably with similar services in other

Originally confined to primary education and providing

countries.

support in Chinese, English, mathematics and social studies, ETV has now

been progressively extended to cover junior secondary forms in the same

group of subjects, with the addition of science. A recent decision

to provide colour receivers and video-cassette recorders for the primary

sector is greatly enhancing the quality and flexibility of the system.

The 1980 Green Paper proposes the establishment of regional libraries

of video-cassette tapes which schools may borrow: these would include

films dubbed on tape as well as previous ETV broadcasts. With a total

estimated audience in 1980 of some 270,000 secondary and 340,000 primary

pupils, the ETV service is undoubtedly supporting the curriculum in a

number of valuable ways for example, good models of spoken English are

made available to schools in which there is normally little or no contact

with an English-speaking environment, and the language can be more

realistically contextualised in visual situations; social studies can be

more directly related to features of local community development; and

basic scientific principles can be demonstrated in ways which the many

schools without well-developed laboratory facilities might find difficult

to achieve. From the very beginning of the service it was recognised that

its full potential would not be achieved (and, indeed, that the service.

was likely to be misused) without preliminary training for teachers, notes

for teachers suggesting preparatory and follow-up activities, and notes

and workbooks for pupils (the latter are restricted to primary pupils).

D