Abstract:
Sri Lanka with a basic literacy rate of more than ninety percentage and 1 to 20 teacher pupil ratio shows an excellent education standard compared with most developing countries. But these statistics concealed the reality of rural schools where unequal distribution of learning resources leads to poor quality in education. Audio – visual medium can be used to provide education for students in a meaningful manner for students who live in rural villages do not have enough resources to achieve their educational goal. Watching television educational programs is one of the ways they select to get knowledge which they could not get from the school. This study is an audience research and analyzed the audience of the Jathika Pasala educational program telecast in Jathika Rupavahini. Most of educational programs that related to a specific curriculum mainly target the school children. This program is telecast to gratify the needs of students who sit for the Ordinary level examination. This study attempted to explore whether students meet their needs from these educational programs. Therefore, according to research findings and discussion researcher found that Jathika Pasala is very effective for students in studies. It helps students to emphasize the subject points and to improve their knowledge. The Jathika Pasala program improved the ability of answering for the questions and it's helpful for preparing for the examinations. But the researcher found that though students are gratified by the Jathika Pasala Program students didn’t meet their needs entirely from this Jathika Pasala program. The program needs some improvement. Changing telecasting time of the program to 6.00 pm, Extending the time duration of the Jathika Pasala program, give chance to students' contact with the teachers for clarifying confusions regarding subject matters, inform the topic going to discuss next week at the end of the program are the suggestions came from Jathika Pasala Educational Program audience.
