Educational TV (ETV) will be given a new look with more lively content and interactive elements as creators reform its role in teaching and learning.
A review is being conducted by Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) and the Education Department (ED), co-producers of the schools' service that has been criticised for being old-fashioned and boring. The Audit Commission is also investigating whether the publicly funded service is offering value for money.
The cost cutting for traditional ETV would be brought about by reducing the air time for Chinese, English and maths programmes for secondary students, some of which were a decade, said Ms Siu. RTHK would also bring down production costs for each 15-minute programme from $300,000 to around $270,000.
Meanwhile, the Audit Commission is preparing a report to see if ETV is worth the public money spent on it. The report will be released later this month. RTHK and the ED have been working together since 1971. In recent years, the Education and Manpower Bureau has allocated about $52 million annually for the production of 175 ETV programmes a year. Ms Siu said ETV should keep pace with developments in Information Technology.
'The content should allow teachers to choose the parts they feel can be integrated into classroom teaching, without requiring students to see the whole programme,' she said.