The Curious Case of Television Learning

'ON PERHAPS WHY THERE CAN BE NO LEARNING IN TELEVISION LEARNING' 

Last week, I went through the second advertisement of Airtel DTH’s latest campaign. A teen we’ve all seen with a familiar detestation and escapist attitude for studies, suddenly has a change of heart and takes an interest in learning after his family switches to Airtel DTH owing to its ‘iExam Interactive learning’ service. ’Sirf Cable Nahin, Life Badlo’ they proudly declare. It got me pondering over the concept of Television Learning. Interactive learning content on TV to teach or assist in teaching students.

Some research here and there later on the various education or learning services offered by the current DTH or digital television operators in the market today reveal that majority of them provide only online testing facilities for various topics and subjects, an example of which the aforementioned iExam services are. There is no instruction on any subject or topic. Nothing is being ‘taught’ and consequently nothing is being learnt. Thrown in with these testing services, is learning content for toddlers and English Speaking courses for people.

As a viewer of the ad, when I see the ad, the first thought that comes to my mind is something being taught on television, a perception I will share with many. A common presumption of television Learning would  involve some form of teaching done using recorded videos and other multimedia content enabling my kin to grasp faster and keep him engrossed with the so called interactive content. Such content is available in the market sold by the school stationary veteran ‘Sundaram’ and some other brands. Then why is there no such content on Television?

I think of reasons for the absence of instructional content despite the availability of so many start-ups in the country today churning out learning and educational content and a few observations come to mind.

Beta! 'Marks ka Sawaal hai!'

A probable reason is the Indian School System which is not ‘Learning oriented’ but ‘Exam oriented’ or ‘Syllabus oriented’. No matter how much we deny, our school students are tested less on their understanding of topics and the ability to apply them and more on their ability to reproduce whatever has been instructed in their classroom; in full.

Also our school studies are parent dominated. Parents invest a lot of time and effort in making sure that their son or daughter takes up his studies seriously owing to the growing competition in our country.

In such a culture, parents would rather have their son/daughter studying from books or class notes which will help them score marks in the exam. In all probability, they have also probably paid for classes or tuitions. They’d rather have their child do homework sums or assignments than sit in front of the TV, unless it provides assured results against the conventional studying from books. When operators are well aware of this culture, why should they invest so much money developing this instructional content?

Add to this the number of Examination Boards (CBSE , ICSE et. al) and the investment required has just shot up to create content for diverse boards.

Perhaps the case where television learning will have the most success is the KG belt where seldom there is any syllabus and learning is as much as your child can observe and grasp. It is also a time where parents in general take a lot of interest in the exact content a toddler is studying rather than in the later years when parents are only involved in policing. This provides an ideal setup to spend time with ones son or daughter and teach him good things using the interactive content on their television. In reality too, this is where the maximum use of these interactive services is being made and copious amounts of content is available for this category.

Chal channel change kar, Serial aa rha hai mera

Secondly, in India television is the only source of entertainment amongst majority of its population. Women by far are the biggest consumers of television. TV serial timings are treated as respectfully as Pooja timings and efforts are made to not miss episodes and watch parallel programs in repeat telecasts. The newer trend catching up is watching missed episodes on Youtube. Children launch their own struggle to gain control of the television and watch their programs. In such a crowded schedule, you cannot expect our average family to compromise their TV time for somebody to learn - Books are many, there is only one TV.

Of course studying is more important and one can always decide a fixed time to study on television daily. But our mentality will most definitely bypass these as the TV is not supposed to be a primary mode of learning but rather the books are. Parents would happily instead buy their kids CDs which they can use on their desktops and shiny new laptops and save Mumma her serial time.

Trust

But the most important factor perhaps, for the concept of television learning to work – ‘Trust’.  ‘How can I trust my kid to study or learn on TV when he can switch to his favourite show or cartoon with a single button when I’m not around?’  It is too fundamental a question to ignore. Although the metaphor is too harsh, it’s like telling a thief to repent for his sins in the lockup and giving him the key to his cell too.

Maybe at this point, using interactive television learning as a gimmick to make the consumer ‘only believe’ that he is indeed, accessing the next generation of television seems a better option.  It is sound business sense rather than investing in actual content which is both expensive and functionally useless. Tests make perfect placeholders for this. What’s better, for those who actually wish to use the testing services, the companies can happily charge them. Comparatively, the time to set up a testing service from readily available content in the market is negligible.

So if you’re a consumer looking to buy a new DTH connection it is probably best to not even bring the TV learning into consideration while selecting a service or plan. Most probably you’ll not end up using it anyway. Be smart and choose an option which provides better benefits.

If you’re a DTH operator, rather a DTH operator advertising the TV learning on national media, it might perhaps be better to find other alternatives in digital interactive content to differentiate your brand in this increasingly competitive market. This can be anything like simple how to videos or as simple an application as ‘M-indicator’ which is a huge convenience for travelling in Mumbai. Of course, all these services can easily be accessed on the internet. But more people, especially housewives, know to use their television remotes than their computers.