Television in the Service of Philippine Education

Education may be defined as the process by which society preserves and transmits its intellectual and cultural heritage. Television, as a medium of communication, holds tremendous potentiality for the realization of this educational purpose and the fulfillment of this process.[1] The product of applying the forms and the techniques of the television medium to the business of education is called Educational Television (ETV).[2]

The schools in the Philippines are in the midst of a time when it need not only more teachers, but also a higher level of teaching. There are not only many people to be educated, but also there is so much more that must be learned, and much that must be learned is more complicated and difficult to learn than before. Further, to make the situation more challenging, there are not enough teachers to do the teaching and not enough school space in which to do the teaching. Moreover, the traditional curricula, methods, organization and examination are outmoded and ill-adapted to the needs of a modern program of education.[3] The flexibility and multiplicity of media like television are to be encouraged.

Some characteristics of television suggest a number of educational uses. A television system has the capacity to distribute to a very large audience. In an open-broadcast system, the limit is set by the range of the transmitters, and by the cost and availability of receivers. It is a feature of the television process in general that programs are produced in and distributed from a central building. Consequently, the best teachers, the most sophisticated items of apparatus and the best visual resources can also be concentrated for as wide a distribution as is desired.

Television’s visual variety offers the opportunity for attractive and imaginative programming, which can stimulate and