The actors and presenters are professional. The producers are first and foremost broadcasters. Schools programs today are not seen as substitutes for the teacher, but as resources for the teacher to incorporate in his or her teaching program. Advice and assistance is still actively sought from each State authority, and the ABC works in close partnership with them, but as transmission is national, in the absence of a national education authority, it is the ABC that sets the agenda. In designing television programs for schools and establishing production priorities, capitalising on the strengths of the medium comes first.
Television can motivate, change attitudes, and whet the appetite.
Maths and science programs are therefore designed to arouse curiosity, to raise questions, to model enquiry processes, to be fun, rather than to demonstrate answers. Language programs are embedded in their culture using carefully selected graded language patterns, but leaving the basic instruction to the teacher or to other media such as audio-cassettes or work books. The best history programs are those that use authentic documentary footage of the event. English programs dramatise plays and novels, stimulating reluctant readers to turn to the original. Television can ease the difficulties found by teachers of personal development by providing a focus outside the pupils' own experience, allowing them to deal with intrusive subjects such as child abuse, sexuality or anti-social behaviour.