Educational Television (ETV) is a series of educational television programmes jointly produced by

Radio Television Hong Kong Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) is the public broadcasting service in Hong Kong. GOW, the predecessor to RTHK, was established in 1928 as the first broadcasting service in Hong Kong. As a government department under the Commerce and Econom ...

and the

Education Bureau The Education Bureau (EDB) is responsible for formulating and implementing education policies in Hong Kong. The bureau is headed by the Secretary for Education and oversees agencies including University Grants Committee and Student Fina ...

(formerly the Education and Manpower Bureau / Education Department) of

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

. ETV has been an auxiliary means for teaching the primary and secondary school curriculum on television since the early 1970s. ETV programmes change with the curriculum from time to time, covering a wide spectrum of topics. Programmes are broadcast during daytime non-peak hours on the English channels of TVB and

ATV ATV may refer to: Broadcasting * Amateur television *Analog television Television stations and companies * Ràdio i Televisió d'Andorra * ATV (Armenia) * ATV (Aruba), NBC affiliate * ATV (Australian TV station), Melbourne * ATV (Austria) * AT ...

from Monday to Friday, during the 32 weeks of the school year. As the popularity of the Internet has increased, ETV has made its programmes available on the World Wide Web on demand.

History

ETV began with the

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...

curriculum and developed gradually. In 1972, the first programme was aimed at Primary 3 students. It extended one level up yearly and covered Primary 6 in 1974. In September 1976, ETV started to cover junior

secondary school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' secondary education, lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) ...

. It began with Secondary 1 and reached Secondary 3 in 1978. There was no major change in range until 1999. ETV extended to Primary 1 and 2 in junior primary and Secondary 4 and 5 on selected topics in senior secondary school. In 2000, ETV also began to broadcast Teacher Resource Programmes for teachers. In April 2020, ETV stops filming new episodes. On 12 May 2020, the

notified RTHK that it had to hand over the Education Television Centre in

Kowloon Tong Kowloon Tong () is an area of Hong Kong located in Kowloon. The majority of the area is in the Kowloon City District. Its exaclocationis south of the Lion Rock, north of Boundary Street, east of the East Rail line and west of Grampian Road. It i ...

by September 2020.

Programmes

The programmes are closely tied with the curriculum devised by

Hong Kong Government The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, commonly known as the Hong Kong Government or HKSAR Government, refers to the Executive (government), executive authorities of Hong Kong Special administrative regions of China, ...

. Most of programmes are in the

Cantonese language Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...

. In the early days, it covered the primary subjects of

Chinese language Chinese (, especially when referring to written Chinese) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in Greater China. About 1.3 billion people (or approximately 16% of the wor ...

, English language and

Mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

, and the secondary subjects Social Studies, Health Education (absent in secondary school) and Nature (later renamed to Science). Programme topics are changed weekly for primary school and biweekly for secondary school. The length of a programme is 15 minutes for primary school and 20 for secondary. Later the secondary subjects were merged to General Studies for primary school as the curriculum changed. As

Putonghua Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern standar ...

has become increasingly important in Hong Kong, it was introduced into the Hong Kong curriculum, and ETV now produces programmes in the language. Social Studies for secondary schools was renamed to Personal, Social and Humanities Education.

Media

During normal school terms, ETV programmes are broadcast from Monday to Friday (except some long school vacations like public holidays and weekend) on the free-to-air terrestrial television channels such: TVB Pearl and ATV World alternately so that one of the stations broadcasts ETV television programmes in the morning from 08:00 until 12:00 HKT on TVB Pearl and television programmes in the noon from 12:00 until 16:00 HKT on ATV World. In each academic year the two English free-to-air terrestrial television stations such: TVB Pearl and ATV World. From school year 2006-07 to 2011-12, the broadcasting hours for ETV programmes reduced to 2 hours on each channel, which was scheduled from 08:30 until 10:30 HKT on TVB Pearl, and from 14:00 until 16:00 HKT on ATV World. Beginning from school year 2012-13, the broadcasting hours further reduced to 1 hour on each channel, which is scheduled from 09:00 until 10:00 HKT (Morning session) on TVB Pearl and from 15:00 until 16:00 HKT (Afternoon session) on ATV World. Due to the expiration of license of Asia Television on 2 April 2016, the Afternoon session of ETV programmes is scheduled from 15:00 until 16:00 HKT on RTHK 31A, which simulcast with Digital Channel RTHK 31. Although each programme is broadcast several times a week, their broadcast times are not adapted to school class timetables. The government therefore provides necessary television and recording equipment for reception of ETV programmes for government schools and aided schools in

. The recorded programmes can then be viewed out of the broadcast time frame as required by the school. Some programmes are distributed in form of VCDs or interactive multimedia

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both comput ...

s to schools. With the coming of the Internet age, ETV programmes and other materials can be obtained from ETV website eTVonline. Additionally, from June 6, 2020, the broadcasting hours of ETV on TVB Pearl will be lifted.

References

External links

Official website in Education BureauHKEdCity website
{{Television in Hong Kong Education in Hong Kong Television in Hong Kong Internet in Hong Kong Educational television series 1970s Hong Kong television series 1972 Hong Kong television series debuts