Commonwealth Broadcasting Association

NEWS AND SPEECHES

Educational Broadcasting in Botswana
Kgopotso T. Ramoroka, Acting Principal Education Officer, Educational Broadcasting Division, Botswana

BACKGROUND

Botswana has had educational radio broadcasts since the early 1960s. The present Educational Broadcasting Division (E.B.D) in the Department of Curriculum Development and Evaluation (CD & E) in the Ministry of Education was then known as the Schools Broadcasting Unit. The Unit was responsible for transmitting a series of short stories provided by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in London, United Kingdom, for Botswana’s primary schools. These programmes came together with support materials in the form of Teachers’ Notes.

There were challenges and constraints for the Unit however, for example, accessibility to live programmes was limited by the problem of poor radio reception in some parts of the country, schools had a limited supply of radios, and the stories covered were not locally based. So in the 1970s the Unit was given the responsibility of developing locally produced programmes which are in line with the national curriculum. The programmes were, and still are, broadcast through Radio Botswana. This makes educational broadcasting the biggest outside contributor to Radio Botswana programmes (Radio Botswana falls under the Ministry of Communications, Science and Technology).

The Department of Non-formal Education (DNFE) has had radio programmes since 1973, known then as Botswana Extension College. It continued with the use of radio after its transformation from Botswana Extension College to the current department status in 1980 to support both out of school adults and youth for literacy and Distance Education programmes. The distance education section of the department was later turned into the present Botswana College of Distance and Open Learning (BOCODOL), which is a parastatal organisation.

OPERATIONS

The Schools Broadcasting Unit has since been upgraded to a Division, and the Division now broadcasts several subject – based programmes and a current affairs programme to primary schools throughout Botswana. Another programme broadcast by the Division is Education Forum, and this one disseminates information about Ministry of Education policies, programmes, activities, innovations and issues. The programme targets teachers and other stakeholders in education. The subject-based programmes include English Time (language), Science, Environmental Science, Social Studies, Religious Education, Cultural Studies and Stories. These are based on the school curriculum (except stories) and therefore every time the curriculum changes the programmes also have to change.

The radio scripts for the subject-based programmes are written by teachers and education officers (all trained by Educational Broadcasting Division) or any other commissioned script writer(s). In addition to the programmes being broadcast live, audio cassettes and teachers’ notes for the same programmes are sent to the schools. The cassettes were initially sent to particularly assist schools which cannot get live broadcasts due to poor radio reception, but they are now sent to all schools (as recommended by the Revised National Policy on Education of 1994). When a series is completed teachers’ notes are done and these are meant to advise teachers on what is contained in the programmes and what they need to prepare before the radio lesson starts.

Currently the Department of Non-formal Education (DNFE), through its Media, Research and Evaluation Division (MRED), broadcasts three weekly radio programmes, two of which belong to the Department itself while the third is for Botswana College of Distance and Open Learning (BOCODOL). These are “A o itse gore” – which is intended to provide the general public with information on general topics including civics, the Literacy programme or “Go bala le go kwala” – whose aim is to mobilise adults to enrol in the national literacy programme, and the Distance Education programme – which targets BOCODOL students for both Junior certificate and Botswana General Certificate of Education as a support service.

The Educational Broadcasting Division (EBD) programmes are broadcast between 8.10 and 11.00 in the morning and 2.05 and 3.20 in the afternoon during the school term (there are three terms of close to four months each), except Education Forum which is broadcast once a week in the evening all year long except during Christmas and New Year holidays. The DNFE programmes are broadcast once a week each all year round. EBD currently has ten producers and two technical staff members while MRED radio section (which is housed by EBD) has three producers who are responsible for production of all the programmes.

FUNDING

Educational programmes are funded by the Botswana government through the Ministry of Education. District and Town councils, which are under the Ministry of Local Government, are responsible for the provision of radios and batteries for the schools.

The Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), however, funded the English Time project for standards one to four.

CHALLENGES

making programmes interactive and interesting / changing formats (in the mould of the present English time series)

updating programmes

getting schools to use the programmes

shortage of staff

accessibility to live programmes and audio cassettes

shortage of radios in the schools

lack of specialisation for producers

difficulty in retaining scriptwriters

WAY FORWARD

seeking solutions to the challenges