The ‘Japan Prize’ Contest: encouraging excellence in educational television

The Japan Prize is probably the world's most prestigious international award for educational television programming. This article discusses how the contest is conducted, and reviews some of the criteria by which jurors determine prize winners, placing a particular emphasis upon the challenges involved in comparing productions from different cultures. The contest includes a number of professional activities for participants, including discussion sessions, seminars, visits to schools, and so on. Award‐winning programmes are distributed to a set of tape libraries located in different parts of the world, to serve as models for instructional television production. The Japan Prize serves to promote excellence in instructional television in a variety of ways.