Why Britain needs to look at digitising our education.

Subbable and Patreon merged this Monday, click here for more info. In this merger it has aligned two providers of funding for Youtube and other forms of new media stars. One of the functions of Subbable was to fund Crash Course and SciShow two educational YouTube channels. Crash Course has various courses from Biology to Government and Politics, it functions as a supplement to US schools programmes, it is also used by teacher across the world as a way to informalise what can be exceptionally difficult topics (the latest topic on Government and Politics was on how a bill passes in Congress) and is a great education tool for teachers and students alike.

Other YouTube channels closer to home in the education field are the channels Numberphile, Sixty Symbols and Periodic Videos; run by the video journalist Brady Haran. These projects are funded by a mixture of Patreon subscriptions, grants from various institutions and advertising on the videos. These videos also provide and insight into the topics which have alienated many for years but have brought a new fun take on topics.

What any government (yes ANY!) needs to look at on May 7th is to see how education can be used in video form as way to promote education for children who are otherwise not incentivised to take up these subjects. Funding for YouTube channels like Numberphile and Crash Course can begiven by the government or even the BBC as it has been proven that shows like this, which are very educational and very well done, DOES provide a greater incentive for children, teens and adults to learn more and can be done at a fraction of the cost that major TV channels have for a budget. Crash Course runs 4 different courses with grants, ads and $25,000 a month in funding from Subbable/Patreon that employs more than 15 people to animate, write the scripts, present the shows and all the other things associated with media content.

If the DfE gave out say £1,000,000 in repayable grants to educational YouTube channels the benefits would more than outweigh the costs. OU courses online already have thousands of views online, but these channels have hundreds of thousands of viewers and over a million subscribers. I'm not saying this money should directly go to Hank Green et al, the government can set up a new sub-committee on the matter or push the BBC towards this sort of funding with more grants for educational programmes.

All that needs to be done, is SOMETHING; in general government has failed to incentivise young people in voting and education naturally only works at a certain pace for maybe 25% of the room. Digital video content could be one way to unlock the potential of those children who do not want to learn at a pace which suits a teacher. All of this can be done at a very small cost in the grand scheme of things, £1 million is roughly the salary costs of one school considering there are 1000s of schools in the UK this should not be a problem for the government.