The Soul Beat 200 - Promoting Education in Africa
In this issue of The Soul Beat:
- TELEVISION, PRINT AND RADIO for early childhood and literacy education...
- MOBILE PHONES for maths education and lifeskills ...
- Resources and studies on KEEPING GIRLS SAFE AT SCHOOL....
- Tools to promote the RIGHT TO EDUCATION AND VIOLENCE FREE SCHOOLS...
This issue of The Soul Beat includes programme experiences, research documents, and resource materials that highlight how communication is being used to promote quality education. Specifically, it looks at the use of television and radio, information and communication technologies, and the participation of girls. It also provides some tools for schools and communities to promote quality education.
If you would like your organisation's communication work or research and resource documents to be featured on the Soul Beat Africa website and in The Soul Beat newsletters, please send information to soulbeat@comminit.com
To subscribe to The Soul Beat, click here or send an email to soulbeat@comminit.com with a subject of "subscribe".
RATE AND REVIEW OUR CONTENT!
We would love to get your feedback on some of the knowledge shared in this newsletter. After you have clicked on the summary links provided, at the bottom of each Soul Beat Africa webpage you will see a star rating option as well as a comments form. Please rate the content and/or let us know what you think by sending a brief comment through the comments form. Your feedback will be greatly appreciated and will help us to better support your work.
You can also send any general comments to soulbeat@comminit.com We would love to hear from you!
TELEVISION, RADIO AND PRINT FOR EDUCATION
1. Sesame Square - Nigeria
With the goal of supporting Nigeria's basic education needs, Sesame Workshop developed the children's television series Sesame Square, broadcast on the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA). The first season, which started in May 2011, consists of 26 thirty-minute episodes that focus on curricular goals tailored to the developmental needs of Nigerian children...
2. Kilimani Sesame - Tanzania
Kilimani Sesame was launched in April 2008 as part of the Sesame Workshop’s worldwide network of children's programmes. The 13-part Swahili television and radio broadcasts of Kilimani Sesame are designed to help children learn about themselves and the social, biological, and physical world around them. More specifically, it seeks to create awareness about health, nutrition, hygiene, safety and the environment, including a special focus on HIV/AIDS and malaria...
3. Bouba and Zaza: Childhood Cultures - An Intergenerational African Series of Children’s Books
The Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)’s regional office in Dakar, Senegal, launched "Childhood Cultures", an intergenerational African series of children’s books. Through the experiences of the main characters, Bouba and Zaza, the series seeks to develop life and socialisation skills outside the family context among children aged 3 to 8 and is also appropriate for older children, parents, and teachers.
4. Techniques for Effective Teaching
One-third of Ghanaian adults are currently unable to read, and the literacy rate is 20% lower for women than for men (UNICEF, retrieved on August 10 2011). One of the factors contributing to these statistics is a shortage of well-trained teachers. To support the delivery of high-quality early childhood and primary education in low-resource schools in Ghana, Sesame Workshop, in partnership with the IDP Foundation, Inc., introduced a teacher training programme in spring 2012 that uses entertainment-education (edutainment) to empower educators with practical strategies to help students learn.
5. Somali Interactive Radio Instruction Program (SIRIP)
Running since 2005, the Somali Interactive Radio Instruction Program (SIRIP) provides high-quality interactive audio programmes to Somali children attending formal, non-governmental, Quranic, and community schools. In addition to basic reading and math in Somali, the programmes contain life skills content such as health, conflict prevention, and mediation, and emphasises the education of girls. An initiative of the Education Development Center, SIRIP radio programmes are supported by training and support materials.
STAY CONNECTED WITH SOUL BEAT AFRICA THROUGH FACEBOOK AND TWITTER
You can visit us on the Soul Beat Africa Facebook page or you can "follow" Soul Beat Africa on Twitter – @SoulBeatAfrica
Please also share our knowledge by liking our Facebook page or by voting "Like" on any of the pages visited from the selections below.
6. Dr. Math - South Africa
Launched in 2007, Dr. Math is a mobile mathematics tutoring programme developed by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Meraka Institute in South Africa. Through Dr. Math, learners are able to send requests about math problems via MXit, a popular cellphone-based chat service, to a group of registered tutors, who respond to their requests for help.
7. BridgeIT - Tanzania
BridgeIT, launched in Tanzania in 2007, is a mobile teaching tool that allows teachers to download educational videos focusing on math, science, and life skills onto mobile phones. The phones are then connected to classroom televisions, which display the videos. Teachers then use BridgeIT-designed lesson plans to build on the ideas outlined in the videos. The programme was launched as a collaboration between the International Youth Foundation and the Tanzania Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, in partnership with Nokia, the Pearson Foundation, the Vodacom Foundation, and the Forum for African Women Educationalists.
8. Materials from an Intervention to Prevent School-Related Gender-Based Violence in Katanga Province, DRC
These communication and training materials were developed by C-Change for an intervention to prevent and mitigate school-related, gender-based violence (SRGBV) and implemented in 31 schools in Katanga Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). C-Change worked with teachers, administrators, parents, and community members to establish policies and structures to discourage SRGBV. The goal was to equip girls and boys ages 10-14 to resist, avoid, and report incidences of SRGBV and receive supportive services. At the same time, the intervention builds the ability of administrators, teachers, SRGBV focal persons in schools, and parents to identify and discourage SRGBV and intervene, if incidences occur.
9 . Gender Equality in Education: Resources from the Safe Schools Program: Pilot Phase - Resources from the Safe Schools Program: Pilot Phase
A number of resources, manuals, and publications were produced as part of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Safe Schools Program, which worked from September 2003 to November 2008 to reduce school-related gender-based violence in selected schools in Ghana and Malawi to support the longer-term goal of improving educational and health outcomes for girls and boys.
10. Stop Violence Against Girls in School: A Cross-Country Analysis of Baseline Research from Ghana, Kenya and Mozambique
By Jenny Parkes and Jo Heslop
The Stop Violence Against Girls in School project, launched by ActionAid and local partners in Ghana, Kenya, and Mozambique in 2008, uses a combined approach consisting of community-level initiatives, research, and advocacy to empower girls and reduce violence against girls in schools (VAGS). This report from 2011 provides a synthesis of research conducted by national research partners in all three countries.
11. Transforming Education for Girls in Nigeria and Tanzania (TEGINT)
TEGINT is a five-year programme running from June 2007 to June 2012 working to achieve a transformation in girls’ education, enabling girls to enrol and succeed in school by addressing key challenges and obstacles that hinder their participation and increase their vulnerability to HIV/AIDS. The project activities include working to build capacity of girls, schools, and communities to challenge gender discrimination, which includes establishing Girls Clubs in schools.
12. Prevention of School-Related Gender-Based Violence - Democratic Republic of Congo
From 2010 to 2012, the Prevention of School-Related Gender-Based Violence behaviour-change communication project is working to promote positive social and gender norms among school-aged children in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. School-based activities are being complimented by community media campaigns using radio, theatre and other communication channels. The project is being implemented by the Communication for Change (C-Change) initiative, which is being managed by FHI 360.
TOOLS FOR PROMOTING QUALITY EDUCATION
13. A Toolkit for Community Dialogues
By Mvuyisi April
This toolkit, published in 2011, provides basic steps for communities to engage in school governance and community participation processes, through community dialogues. It encourages readers to consider their school community and think about what is happening that a dialogue, for example a dialogue on budgets, could address. It was published by the Community and Citizens’ Empowerment Programme at the Institute for Democracy in Africa (IDASA) in collaboration with the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development Right to Know, Right to Education Project.
14. Promoting Rights in Schools: Providing Quality Public Education
Published by ActionAid International and the Right to Education Project in 2011, this resource pack from the Promoting Rights in Schools (PRS) initiative offers a set of practical tools that can be used to actively engage parents, children, teachers, unions, communities, and local civil society organisations in collectively monitoring and improving the quality of public education.
15. The Good School Toolkit
This toolkit, published by Raising Voices, is intended to support violence-free learning environments within which students develop their skills and confidence to grow into creative, constructive, and thoughtful members of their community.
SOUL BEAT E-NEWSLETTER ARCHIVES
See these previous e-newsletters related to Education:
The Soul Beat 178 - Communication for Education and Development
The Soul Beat 136- Promoting Literacy
Click here to view ALL past editions of The Soul Beat e-newsletter.
Please send material for The Soul Beat to soulbeat@comminit.com
If you have not received the most recent edition of The Soul Beat and you are definitely subscribed, it may be that your mailbox is protected by spam filters. Please add soulbeat@comminit.com to your email address book, spam software whitelist, or mail system whitelist.
Click here to subscribe to The Soul Beat or send an email to soulbeat@comminit.com with a subject of "subscribe".
- Log in to post comments