Radio in Education - Botswana

Botswana has two radio channels – Radio Botswana 1 and Radio Botswana 2. The former is a public channel while the latter is commercial. The Educational Broadcasting Division, which has been divided into Non-formal and Schools’ broadcasting sections, broadcasts their programmes through RB1.

The schools broadcasting section broadcasts 15-minute radio programmes from 08h10 to 11h00 and from 14h00 to 15h15 every weekday. These programmes focus on supporting subjects in schools. There are usually 28 programmes in a series for a specified subject and standard. It broadcasts a weekly half-hour programme for teachers called Teachers Forum and a weekly current affairs programme

The educational broadcasting division (EBD) collaborates with curriculum development officers to produce these programmes that supplement the curriculum. Review committees consist of:

• Education officers from the regions, with a subject specialization;
• INSET education officers from the department of Teacher Training and Development (TT&D); and
• Teachers from schools.

The committee used to meet every two months, but now it is not functioning as effectively as previously and is supposed to meet at least twice a year. Short-staffing at the division is one of the key reasons for this decline in effectiveness of the review committees. The EBD has been involved in training INSET education officers through ‘train-the-trainer’ workshops focusing on using audio resources (particularly for English) in the classroom. It holds regional workshops approximately two or three times a year. Some workshops are run at schools in order to train teachers in radio use. The EBD feels that teachers must be involved in the learning experience and that radio programmes should be interactive.

The EBD does not currently have a production cycle, but responds to production needs as the curriculum changes. How often programmes are reviewed or adapted varies from subject to subject. For example, social studies programmes have to be reviewed every term to retain currency and relevance, while science and language programmes have a longer shelf life.

Teachers’ notes have been created for some subjects like English, Social Studies, and Science. The following texts are good examples of such resources:

• Educational Broadcasting Division, Teachers’ Notes: English Time Programmes for Standard 3, Government Printer: Gaborone.
• Educational Broadcasting Division, Teachers’ Notes: English Time Programmes for Standard 4, Government Printer: Gaborone.

EBD tries not to be too text bound or to ‘stigimatize the text’. While reference is made to prescribed textbooks at times, this is not frequent as, if the texts are changed, the programmes will become irrelevant. The division draws on various scriptwriters and education officers for programme production. Most scriptwriters are teachers in schools. It recruits children and adults as actors or script readers and uses music teachers for background tunes and lyrics for songs in the programme. Sound effects are either bought or recorded on location, where possible.

All schools are issued with radios and audiocassette players. This equipment requires maintenance and repair, and often classrooms have to share equipment. Not all schools have electricity – particularly those in rural areas. Batteries are often a problem, as they are not available timeously or are supplied in bulk and go flat. In addition, reception in remote more rural areas is not clear. As a result of these difficulties, the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) supported a project to distribute audiocassettes of the radio programmes to schools. The EBD has a bulk cassette dubbing facility, and, in the first year of the project, distributed approximately 5,360 cassettes to about 700 schools. It has found that cassettes are more reliable than broadcasts and allow for frequent repeats on demand and encourage teacher preparation. The government now supports the cassette project, and all schools can order cassettes when they are required. Last year approximately 8,000 cassettes were sent to schools. The cassettes are often distributed with the teacher guide notes.