CCOP dollars flow into education with Telus partnership deal announced at CNMAs

Canadian Heritage minister Sheila Copps ended months of speculation on May 27 by announcing that Telus Corp. would be the department’s chief e-learning partner. During the third annual Canadian New Media Awards in Toronto, Copps and Telus executive VP John Chang announced the creation of the new $5-million Canada-Telus New Media Learning Fund to funnel dollars into digital learning projects. The fund was contributed to equally by the western-based telco and the federal government through its Canadian Culture Online Program. The fund will chip in up to a maximum of $200,000 for new media learning projects on a partnership basis with other parties on a variety of ventures. Fund guidelines posted online indicate that most of the cash is expected to be spoken for by February 2003, and companies are warned to check with officials if applying after August of this year. Robert Dubberley, the fund’s executive director, says the fund is a natural evolution in education spending. "We’ve provided the pipes to deliver the content, but we’ve not developed that content. This is an attempt to provide Canadian content for those pipes to satisfy the needs of the Canadian school system," he tells Canadian NEW MEDIA. "On the other side, I think there’s a growing need on the part of the educator to be able to use these resources and have access to these resources. One of the things we hope will come out of this is some synergy between the SME developer and the educator who has to use the material, and that there will be collaborative things happening there." The fund is the first of its type to be footed on a national scale and might serve as a catalyst for investment by provinces. In Quebec, a similar call has been made by the Alliance NumériQC for the development of content since every school in the province has been hooked up to high-speed fibre networks (CNM, Apr. 19/02). In the meantime, a much larger $26-million federal program to encourage the development and use of broadband networks in education and training sponsored by CANARIE Inc. will continue to 2004. Dubberley says participation by each of the provincial governments, other federal departments and agencies, and the private sector have all been identified as potential partners. In fact, guidelines governing the program state that the fund will favour applicants with financial support from the provinces. He adds that Telus expects a broad range of projects to apply for the funding, including potential applications on DVD, CD-ROM, and the world wide web. Dubberley notes that the company has already been involved with a wide variety of initiatives through its $10-million Telus New Media and Broadcast Fund, which has seen 75 per cent of received applications relate to education in some form. As examples of material that Telus has already funded through the larger pool, he cites the DVD project Missing and the Encyclopedia British Columbia. The Telus New Media and Broadcast Fund has aided approximately 25 projects over the past three years. The new fund’s repayment scheme is also modeled on the older one, with the same recoupable loans that Telefilm Canada has since adopted in its new Canada New Media Fund. Dubberley notes that Telus neither wants to be overly involved as an equity partner nor as a creditor with the power to call in debts. Repayments will come from revenues, on terms negotiated beforehand between the fund and the recipient. One third of funds from the Canada-Telus New Media Learning Fund will be reserved for Francophone projects. Applicants must be Canadian, and projects must be led by companies that are primarily development-related, and SMEs. Active participation by a teacher in the project will prove an advantage, according to guidelines posted to http://www.telus.com/telusfund.

CCOP dollars flow into education with Telus partnership deal announced at CNMAs

News | 05/31/2002 4:00 am EDT

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