MANILA, Philippines - Preschool and elementary school pupils will soon have access to educational television (ETV) programming to enhance their learning skills, if a bill pending in the House of Representatives is passed into law.

House Bill 5455 or the Digital Education Act of 2008 seeks to mandates the Department of Education (DepEd) to enter into a digital partnership with eligible broadcasting firms to bring ETV to schools.

"This form of education helps parents, caregivers and professional child care providers to learn how to use television as a means to help children learn, develop and play creatively," author Rep. Narciso Santiago III said in a press statement posted on the House of Representatives website.

Santiago said the United States Congress and the Department of Education collaborated in 1994 to make a long-term, meaningful and public investment on ready-to-learn TV program.

He said this aims to make high-quality preschool educational television help children be ready to learn by the time they enter Grade One.

The ready-to-learn TV program aired through the public broadcasting service (PBS) and local public television stations had proven to be a very cost-effective national response towards improving early childhood development, he added.

Santiago said an independent research and a University of Alabama study showed that parents who participate in ready-to-learn workshops tend to be more critical consumers of TV when their children are more active viewers, and read more books and stories to their children than
non-attendees.

He added that parents, after six months of attending the ready-to-learn workshops would generally set rules for TV viewing by their children.

"These rules related to the amount of time children were allowed to watch TV daily, the hours the children were allowed to watch and the tasks or chores the children must have finished before they could watch," he said.

Under the bill, the Secretary of Education will award grants to, or enter into contracts or cooperative agreements with, eligible television and broadcasting entities to develop, produce and distribute educational and instructional video programming for pre-school and elementary school children and their parents, patterned after the ready-to-learn television program in the United States. - GMANews.TV

Source: gmanews.tv/story/135786/Bill-seeks-educational-TV-access-for-preschool-elementary-pupils