VLV PUBLIC MEETING ON BBC EDUCATION PLANS

PUBLIC pressure group Voice of the Listener and Viewer (VLV), have arranged a public meeting to debate the BBC’s plans to change the form and delivery of their education programmes for schools and adult learners from next September.
VLV Chair Jocelyn Hay wrote to BBC Chairman Sir Christopher Bland to request an extension to the original consultation deadline of October 20 so as to enable VLV to hold a public meeting at which the BBC Joint Director of Education, Factual and Learning, Michael Stevenson, could explain his policies and take questions from the floor. These requests were granted and a wide range of participants from primary and secondary schools, further education colleges, university education departments and parents are expected to attend.
The mounting criticism and growing concern which brought about this meeting regard the BBC’s consultation on their new digital curriculum and the fast pace at which the BBC plan to move BBC’s schools and other education broadcasts off the air onto the Web and Internet.
The BBC are proposing to introduce their new online service for schools from September 1, 2001, and then phase out existing television programmes to schools. Teacher’s support resources will also be move elsewhere. The BBC are also proposing radical change in all their other education services, one of which has already spelt the end of BBC Education as a separate department. Programmes such as ‘Walking with Dinosaurs’ and ‘Horizons’ will in future be classified ‘educative’ bringing them within the BBC’s traditional education remit.
The Secretary of State of Culture, Media and Sport must give his approval to such changes in BBC services but before the proposal goes to him, the BBC must consult the public. The BBC offered a largely on-line public consultation from mid-September to October 20. VLV considered this to have been inadequate for such an important issue as the future of BBC Education. VLV have been granted an extension to the consultation period in order to hold this event and open issues to public debate.
The meeting will be held on Monday October 30 from 6 to 8pm at the National Liberal Club, 1 Whitehall Place, London SW1. Tickets are priced at £10 each, VLV members and students £5.
For further information contact Jocelyn Hay or Linda Forbes, Tel: +44 01474 352835.