Educational Television (Hong Kong)

Educational Television (Chinese: 教育電視), shortly known as ETV, is a series of educational television programmes jointly produced by Radio Television Hong Kong and the Education Bureau (formerly the Education and Manpower Bureau / Education Department) of Hong Kong. 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 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.

ETV began with the primary school 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. 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.

The programmes are closely tied with the curriculum devised by Hong Kong Government. Most of programmes are in the Cantonese language. In the early days, it covered the primary subjects of Chinese language, English language and 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 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.

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