Educational Broadcasting

Educational Broadcasting, use of radio and television to assist teaching and learning.

Pioneers of wireless telegraphy (radio), such as Marconi, working 100 or so years ago, believed the new technology would soon be put to useful purposes. Shortly after it was set up in 1922, the British Broadcasting Company, later the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), began to see how it could use “wireless”, as it was first called, to assist learning. John Reith, who, as a public service broadcaster, aimed to “educate, inform, and entertain”, set up the first National Advisory Committee on Education in 1923 and appointed a Director of Education, a school inspector, who, in 1924, wrote an article in the BBC's programme listings magazine the Radio Times, proposing a Broadcasting University.

The earliest experimental broadcasts to schools emanated from Glasgow and London in 1924 and by the autumn of that year regular secondary school and adult education broadcasts were in place, with regular supporting publications coming soon after. A new weekly publication, The Listener, began publishing transcripts of educational talks from 1929 and developed into a magazine until 1991, when it ceased. As the services grew, education officers were appointed to liaise with the educational world and to advise on policy. Separate Advisory Committees for School and Adult Education were set up and, for the latter, a Group Listening movement was encouraged. During the 1930s the whole system flourished, with most subjects on the curriculum treated. Mathematics was, interestingly, an exception.

Among initiatives at this time were new ways of learning, emphasizing a more imaginative, child-centred approach. Programmes in Gaelic and Welsh were introduced for children in Scotland and Wales. In the early 1930s it was not thought appropriate to make broadcasts for younger pupils. However, largely because of improved broadcasting practices, using drama and music in place of straight “talk”, such broadcasts quickly became successful later in the decade. History and foreign language teaching series were firm favourites.