TV Escola

TV Escola (literally in English: School TV) is a Brazilian public broadcasting television network created by Ministry of Education of Brazil in 1995. First broadcast in 1996 in a nationwide transmission, it airs exclusively educational programs.

History

The project "TV Escola" was legally approved on June 2, 1995 as part of Strategic Planning of Ministry of Education of Brazil. It was launched by minister Paulo Renato Souza through the Secretariat for Development, Innovation and Educational Evaluation (SEDIAE) on an experimental basis on September 4, 1995 in two schools of Teresina, Piauí. Its first nationwide broadcast occurred on March 4, 1996. On May 27, 1996, the Ministry of Education of Brazil extinguished SEDIAE and created the Secretariat for Distance Education (SEED) to assign TV Escola. Aimed to teachers, it was created to support them as an educational tool, and both to supplement their own training, and for use in their teaching practices. The oldest of two Federal programs created to support technological innovation in Brazil, TV Escola also distributes television sets, videocassette recorders, and satellite dishes to schools.

On December 15, 2003, the then-Minister of Education, Cristovam Buarque, launched the project "TV Escola Interativa" in a partnership with Universidade Mackenzie. The project initially occurred in seven states of Brazil—Acre, Ceará, Espírito Santo, Goiás, Maranhão, Mato Grosso do Sul, and Rio Grande do Sul, distributing in three schools of each state a multimedia kit. The kit allowed to record seven days of programing in CD-ROMs, and to contact TV Escola through telephone and e-mail, allowing the viewer to send suggestions and participate in distance education courses.