Ontario takes next step in transforming TVO into a new media learning centre

The expansion of the new media division of TVOntario is expected to be a slow bureaucratic affair as the provincial educational broadcaster absorbs the Independent Learning Centre. Different unions and the involvement of two different provincial ministries are generating red tape for the transfer of resources and staff positions from the centre to TVOntario. The centre, currently under the Ministry of Education, will be shifted to the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities, under which the provincial broadcaster operates at arm’s length. TVOntario chair and CEO Isabel Bassett says, "It’s government and you know how that moves slowly, …(the transfer) is still very much in the preliminary stages. …It’s a complicated jurisdictional thing to work out because of the broadcast licence." The two ministries and TVOntario have each formed steering committees to oversee the transfer, with a target date for completion set by six months time. One big challenge of the integration is labour related, according to Bassett, because TVOntario does not operate under the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, while employees of the centre currently do. "It’s a matter of (the steering committees) sitting down and saying what benefits do employees get there and how is that going to fit in here, and does everybody want to work here or do they want to work anywhere else?" notes Bassett. Transfer to exploit existing online expertise She points out that the transfer is aimed at taking advantage of the interactive and online expertise of TVOntario’s new media division to make the elementary and secondary distance educational print materials developed by the centre available on the Internet, and to eliminate duplication between the two organizations. Bassett also expects to use TVOntario’s broadcasting arm to cross promote the online educational materials by airing two-to-three minute spots on subjects related to what’s in the courses, and advising viewers to log on to their web site. TVOntario reaches an average of three million English-language viewers per week, and is available to 98.5 per cent of English-language households in the province. Its French-language broadcast arm, TFO, is beamed to between 75-80 per cent of Ontario’s French-speaking households. Two years ago, the Ontario government endorsed a new mandate for the provincial broadcaster, one based on training, retraining and lifelong learning. "When you deliver something online, you can’t do it exactly the same way as you can a print course. …We will be packaging them (the courses) up in the best way and developing the best methods using the technology which works best for people to be able to learn online from these courses," Bassett says. She adds that the centre, under the TVO umbrella, will be able to take advantage of the skills resident in the new media division, including extensive technology expertise related to online course delivery. Created in April 2000, the new media division’s mandate is "to focus on non-broadcast, interactive programs for children, parents and the workplace through the use of sophisticated, interactive media." With $5 million in provincial funding, coupled with matching private funds, the division provides interactive training programs for skills, such as home carpentry or automobile know-how. The initiative, dubbed the Lifelong Learning Challenge Fund, was approved by the province in May 2000. Bassett says funding for the Independent Learning Centre, once it becomes part of TVOntario’s domain, will be stable for three years, although she is unsure at this point from which of the two ministries it will come. She adds that the centre’s budget and activities will be administered separately from other initiatives of the new media division.

Ontario takes next step in transforming TVO into a new media learning centre

Broadcast | January 24, 2001

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