Montreal: Canadians have responded with real enthusiasm to WEM – the World Education Market – with the space allocation reserved for participants from this country sold out early. wem is being billed as the ‘first truly international, multi-sectoral education forum’ and has drawn more than 3,000 participants, a virtual international who’s who of education, training and lifelong learning. The inaugural edition opens in Vancouver, May 24-27.

The market’s special appeal appears to be its unique mix of educational, production, marketing and financing types.

The wem program includes plenary and panel conference sessions, including a key session on financing and a mip-style market simulation event hosted by Banff Television Festival president Pat Ferns. The market has attracted more than 398 exhibitors and 865 participating organizations from 71 countries, according to event planner Reed Midem Organization.

Canada is hosting a national pavilion sponsored by Industry Canada, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

Ross Mayot, vp development, Canadian Learning Television, says wem ‘is long overdue as a gathering point for anybody involved in distributed learning or distance learning or technology-mediated learning.’

Mayot says there are other educational forums internationally ‘but none that bring the kind of market perspective whereby an educational broadcaster can meet independent producers, technology people, educators and people in marketing – and really look at the whole eco-system required to create, produce and distribute any kind of learning materials. It’s not a conference just for educators, or independent producers.’

clt intends to use the market to buy and sell programming and to build creative and marketing partnerships.

Mayot says the education business is cross-platform. ‘We don’t see the world in straight tv terms because multimedia and the new media are very much part of the education economy.’

Mayot says one of clt’s primary functions is to act as a marketer ‘to help build awareness as to what’s out there….’

Meanwhile, many new players are entering the educational market. ‘There are companies that can come from nowhere in the space of a couple of years and become major educational players because they are taking advantage of new delivery systems,’ says Martin Mulloy, director of BBC English Language Teaching and BBC Languages. (See May issue of KidScreen.) bbc’s educational division recently changed its name to BBC Factual & Learning.

In the u.k., which boasts a us$63 billion education market, the government is putting us$2.7 billion into school equipment and digital content, with a goal of 100% e-mail and Web access by 2002.

Channel 4 in the u.k. also has big market plans for its educational unit, 4 Learning, with a us$395 million investment to be spent over five years.

According to an International Data Corporation report, the educational software market this year is expected to ring in us$4.1 billion in sales for schools and us$2.1 billion in the international consumer market, while rich companies like Microsoft and Pearson have invested in the educational sector.

Montreal’s Cinar Corp. has spent about us$120 million since ’97, acquiring American publishing house Carson-Dellosa, educational producer High Reach Learning, Israel-based multimedia publisher Edusoft and mostly recently u.s. music publisher Twin Sisters Productions.

‘In our marketplace, I don’t believe that many people recognize us as a group as Cinar Education. We’re really looked at as individual companies,’ says Steve Carson, president of Cinar Education and Carson-Dellosa Education. ‘I don’t think teachers in the elementary classrooms react very well to highly commercialized product lines.’

For kids 12 and under, u.s. sales of education product are in the us$10 billion a year range, including us$2.6 billion in publishing sales, us$1 billion in software and us$2.6 billion in school supplies.

Some of the international organizations from the audiovisual sector attending the first edition of wem include: aited (International Association of Educational and Discovery Television Companies – France); BBC Worldwide (u.k.); Centre National de Documentation Pedagogique (France); Channel Four Learning (u.k.); La Cinquième/La Sept arte (France); MultiRio (Brazil); Open Learning Agency (Canada); pbs (u.s.), National Geographic (u.s.); Canadian pubcasters Tele-Quebec and tvontario; WinStar New Media (u.s.); CineGroup Interactif (Canada), Magic Lantern Communications (Canada) and The Multimedia Group of Canada.

(www.wemex.com)

(ww.clt.ca) and

(www.accesslearning.com)

(www.kidscreen.com)