Factsheet 1966: Educational Programmes on Independent Television 

27 September 2018 tbs.pm/66554

Schools programmes were first introduced on Independent Television in May 1957 and regular series of adult education programmes (“Sunday Session”) in January 1963.

Schools Programmes. By mid-1966 over thirteen thousand schools and colleges were registered with the programme companies as intending viewers.

Independent Television currently provides 13 programme series every week during its school term for audiences ranging from infant school classes to sixth forms, constituting some 9 per cent of weekly programme time. These are produced by Rediffusion, ATV Network and Granada; additional programmes for local presentation only are produced by Scottish Television, Grampian Television, Tyne Tees Television and Ulster Television.

To assist head teachers in the preparation of their time-tables a booklet is distributed at the beginning of each summer term giving the times and description of programmes planned for the following school year. More detailed programme notes for individual series are also provided. The Independent Television Education Secretariat coordinates the distribution of programme information.

In formulating the general educational policy of the ITV service, the Independent Television Authority has the advice of an Educational Advisory Council with Sir John Newsom as chairman. Two Education Committees deal with detailed planning – the Schools Committee (chairman: Mr. B. S. Braithwaite, Chief Education Officer for East Sussex) and the Adult Education Committee (chairman: Sir Peter Venables, Vice-chancellor, University of Aston in Birmingham).

Companies producing schools programmes have their own advisory committees and education officers, and all others presenting schools programmes have a liaison officer who maintains contact with educationists and educational institutions in his company’s area.

 

 

Adult Education Programmes. “Sunday Session” comprises five programmes networked late on Sunday morning and early Sunday afternoon, produced by ABC, ATV Network and Tyne Tees Television. Some of these programmes are repeated the following Saturday. Subjects covered during 1965-66 include foreign languages, drama, sociology, investment, cookery, gardening, first aid and household repairs. Weekday series have also been produced by Rediffusion (Make Sail, Society, and from May 1966 a series on the English civil war, Royalist and Roundhead); by Southern Television (Time, Place and the Poet and Farm Progress); and by TWW (Croeso Christine, a Welsh language series). Westward Television’s series on preparation for retirement, The Bonus Years, was transmitted on Sunday afternoons and has also been shown in a number of other regions. Vocational series include Scottish Television’s Post-graduate Medicine, and Border Television’s Farm ’66, a course on farm machinery for young people going into farming, and leading to a special City and Guilds certificate.

 

A Transdiffusion Presentation

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