Review of the book Organizing Educational Broadcasting by David Hawkridge and John Robinson

Organizing Educational Broadcasting by David Hawkridge and John Robinson was published in 1982 by The Unesco Press.

I found this book very helpful for various reasons.  It is a very practical book - 12 case studies were used to evaluate the effects of television and radio in educational broadcasting. Two of them concentrated exclusively on radio.  I found the studies in Mexico and Nicaragua especially interesting, because the rural areas with its specific problems and mindsets made me think of the rural areas in SA.

No matter how wonderful the idea - if it is not practical, it will not work. The book discusses educational learning in a formal and informal setting (classrooms, at home or in community centres) but I mostly consentrated on examples from classrooms since that suits my own research programme.

According to Hawkridge and Robinson, educational broadcasting exhibits four dominant characteristics:

1.       Its programmes are arranged in series to assist cumulative learning

2.       They are explicitly planned in consultation with external educational advisers

3.       They are commonly accompanied by other kinds of learning materials such as text books and study guides

(1982: 25)

They believe that educational radio is influenced by the following determining factors:

Educationa factors like admission policies, curriculum policies, staffing policies and union attitudes, technical factors like production and transmission facilities, access to wave bands and air time, receiving facilities, coverage, staffing, geographical factors like terrain, distance (mountainous – shadow of mountain range, cost of transmitting to far-flung rural areas)  political factors : struggles for control between ministries of education, culture, telecommunication, finance, health, agriculture, industry and internal affairs, integration facors like collaboration with other media, isolationism in broadcasting (ignoring what happens on the other end has been caricatured as a process of one-way communication) cultural factors like ethnic minorities and influence of elites, economic factors like cost trends, cost effectiveness, cost burdens and hidden costs and contribution to national development.  (1982:31)

Chapter 3: Methods of Reviewing objectives:

Review of General and Strategic Objectives and review of particular and operational objectives.

General  and Strategic:

1.       Total volume of ongoing commitment

2.       Commitment to various areas of need – primary, secondary, out of school

3.       Choice of major areas of need (literacy, maths etc)

4.       Provision of associated learning materials (teachers’ guides books etc)

5.       Degree of direct involvement of system with its users

6.       Extent of planned collaboration with other agencies working in the educational field.

(1982: 61)

Particular and operational objectives

1.       The definition of specific social and educational groups to be served

2.       Main purpose to be served in the attempt to reach these social groups

3.       Choice of subject specialisms

4.       Choice of educational approaches

5.       Choice of appropriate production styles

6.       Choice of formative and summative evaluation methods in the development of the selected provision

7.       Extent of direct communication with the users and the use made of that communication

8.       The extent and choice of associated learning materials for particular projects and the responsibility for their production.

(1982:64,65)

Different systems are described in the different case studies and different practices in formulating these operational objectives.  See case studies in this book.

Questions arising from evidence: (1982:66,67)

1.       How well equipped are the system’s full time staff

2.       What scope does the system allow for the participation of directly interested external bodies that represent the users?

3.       What resources does the system allocate to the systematic collection of feedback evidence and

4.       what attention does it give to that evidence in the review of its objectives?

How successful is the system in demonstrating that its objectives are regularly and systematically reviewed at all levels without allowing the reviews to become over-formalized and bureaucratic?

Evaluation of the project is of utmost important.  From the broadcasting side, the broadcaster might have his own evaluation policies, but in the end it is student achievement that is the determining factor.

Evidence from his case studies show findings that are similar to those by Denzil D. Russell case studies (also reviewed in this blog).  Some of these are the importance of:
Ongoing commitment, commitment to different areas of need (primary, secondary, adult education)
the taking into account of various areas of curriculum need (language and literacy development, numeracy and mathematics, arts and sciences, family and social development or personal enrichment or enlightenment.
privision of associated learning materials like teacher's guides, feedback channels and direct involvement of the system with its users and planned collaboration with other agencies working in the educational field.

From this book, the case study in Mexico City (Radioprimaria) was most valuable for my own research and I review that separately from a study by Peter Spain.