Escuela Emilia Lascar

How a school TV channel inspired students during the pandemic

Escuela Emilia Lascar, a school in Peñaflor, Chile, realised it could overcome the challenges brought by the pandemic by harnessing the power of TV to entice its students to focus on their studies.

A large public school that caters to over 1,000 children from Kindergarten to the Primary level, Escuela Emilia Lascar has, in its 80-year history, mostly taught children who come from less privileged backgrounds. Currently 91% of its student population has been categorised as belonging to families that are considered vulnerable. The school had increased its enrollment over the years and the majority of its students go on to graduate from the eighth grade.

But the disruption caused by the pandemic forced the school to re-evaluate how to maintain the same standard of care and education. Due to the scale and technical issues online learning could create, Escuela Emilia Lasca used the power of the small screen to reach its students by launching “Emilia TV” in April 2020. The programme was broadcast live every week, first through Facebook and then on its own YouTube channel. The topics varied, but Emilia TV sought to educate its students on a number of issues that were at the forefront of everyday life such as gender identity and mental health. The content created and published on Emilia TV was a result of a close collaboration between students, teachers, parents and support teams formed to help with the project.

The channel helped foster a space for students and utilised the influence and prominence of social media to become a useful learning tool that provided a fun and playful kind of education. Because of its success, Emilia TV is now used by other schools and was recognised with two national awards for its innovation.

When schools reopened, Escuela Emilia Lascar found the pandemic had stifled the students’ self-esteem. To help re-energise and motivate its students, Escuela Emilia Lascar decided to incorporate Emilia TV in its formal classes, giving students a more invigorating way to engage with their studies.

If Escuela Emilia Lascar were to win the World’s Best School Prize for Innovation, it would use the money to set up a media studio where students could learn more about media and create their own audio and visual content with the best technology and tools available.