Contracts have been inked for infrastructural works as the government’s 24-hour Education TV channel is moving closer to reality.
Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon, at his weekly briefing yesterday at Office of the President, stated that mechanisms to transmit signals, both satellite and terrestrial, have been moving apace while the National Frequency Management Unit (NFMU) has been given the spectrum for transmission by the channel.
According to Luncheon, there were plans to have the Ministry of Education make a formal presentation on Education TV but due to unforeseen circumstances the presentation has been pushed back to next Tuesday.
He said too that the Education Ministry has acquired human resource personnel to undertake production of the materials for the TV station and specific information which Education Minister Shaik Baksh would have been required to provide to Cabinet has been looked at.
Stabroek News has reported that representatives from the multi-media centre at the National Communications Network (NCN) have been in discussion on the procurement of equipment i.e. towers, transmission cables and the location for the relay station as well as issues concerning the installation of these equipment.
The Ministry of Education has also set up a multi-media centre at the National Centre for Education and Resource Development (NCERD), which will complement the programmes on the television station.
Last September, Luncheon had said that the establishment of the 24-hour educational channel would be part of a scheme under the administration’s Educational Sector Strategy Plan to use technology to push distance education countrywide.
The design, Luncheon said then, “would initially see state media, on a dedicated television channel, offering 24 hours a day TV broadcast programme for the public of an educational nature.” He added that the initial geographic roll-out would cover the coastal regions, where television signals are already being received.
Luncheon explained that the content of educational programmes would be developed by NCERD’s recently-created multi-media unit, which is targeting nursery, primary and secondary levels. He added that the distribution of these materials would rely on the assets of the NCN.
As regards the private sector’s role in the initiative, Luncheon said there may be a place for them to advertise, particularly since the channel may not run for 24 hours initially. “Initially, before production of content and delivery mechanisms mature, one can anticipate significantly less than all 24 hours being dedicated to educational programming,” he said.
“Conceivably, those unused hours should/could be made available to advertisers, [the] private sector to provide a revenue stream for the educational TV hosts and planners,” he added.
The next planned phase of the initiative would see the internet, through web-based portals, offering the same or similar content to educational institutions and home-based individuals, from anywhere and at anytime.
