BBC bosses have announced a shake-up of their learning division with the loss of around 18 jobs.
The BBC learning department is being streamlined to deliver fewer but "bigger, higher budget projects that will cut through to larger audiences more profoundly," according to Liz Cleaver, controller of BBC learning and interactive. New initiatives include a major BBC1 campaign to tackle obesity.
"This will be the century of interactive learning and the BBC will be at its heart," said Ms Cleaver.
"Everyone across the UK will have the opportunity to tap into their passions and needs for learning and realise their full potential. The new structure might affect some of the team. However, we will do everything we can to minimise disruption and potential redundancies through examining other available opportunities."
The changes, which were presented to staff today, will see a total of 12 posts lost, but because of job-sharing the total number of jobs lost will be 18.
The total number of posts at BBC Learning is around 96, with another 200 in BBC interactive. Today's announcement will be followed by a two-month consultation period with staff.
The learning division's most high-profile campaigns include its Bitesize revision initiative for children. Other projects include WW2 People's War, a national archive of thousands of individual entries from people who lived through World War Two, while this year will see the launch of another two new services specifically for adults.
"People's War not only meets the challenge of assisting a generation who may not be confident using the internet, to share their stories and get in touch with others who shared similar experiences," explained Cleaver, "but also offers them the opportunity to share their memories with the wider audience, young and old alike."
The obesity campaign will encourage viewers to take up personalised diet and exercise plans, accompanied by a long-term programme of support and encouragement.
"I want Learning to build on pan-BBC events and our successful interactive services to engage people in learning not for days, but for months and years," said Ms Cleaver. "Working together we will harness all the creative resources that the BBC has to offer to make a real difference to people's lives."
A BBC spokesman said the corporation's £150m digital curriculum will remain unaffected by the changes.
"This is about delivering bigger projects with higher budgets," he said. "Key to this is the interactive element which we will be making an integral part of future campaigns, so that people for example can follow their personalised fitness and exercise campaigns when the programme is not on and long after it is finished. Twelve posts and 18 people are going from a total of 96 people."
The reforms echo changes at Channel 4's education department, 4 Learning, which announced last autumn its intention to pump more money into high-profile, prime time projects. The first of these was a teenage version of Big Brother, Teen Big Brother, which was accompanied by an online site and resource pack for schools and colleges, part of its drive to engage 14 to 19-year-olds.
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