Interactive Radio Instruction

As an education volunteer one of my jobs is to visit all the schools in my area to assess their progress and learn how I can best meet their needs. I work within the Petauke school District and within that the Nsenya school zone. In my zone there are 10 Government schools, which means that the government pays the teachers salaries, as well as provides most of the direct funding for the schools. These schools contain great and dedicated staff like my Zonal Head teacher seen below:

The buildings were often, but not always, built by the government and they tend to be among the best supported schools in the area. These schools tend to teach up to grade 8. Nsenya however currently has grade 9 and has plans for grade ten classrooms to be built later this year.

There are also community schools of which my area has 4. These schools have been built usually through the dedication of community members with the help from outside NGOs. Community schools often have a mix of government paid teachers and trained mentors who teach students. These schools usually receive a smaller fraction of support from the government, but their staff is no less dedicated, like Mr. Zulu pictured right at Nsamba community school. These schools also can have up to grade 8, but tend to stop by grade 5. After students finish at one school they are referred to the nearest school with the following grade however due to the distances involved and the costs that go along with that (students may need to attend school over 40 kilometers away) education can often end when their schools highest grade does.

Note: This is in fact a different day I just happen the same thing most days ;)

Finally there are Interactive Radio Instruction (IRI) centers. Currently there are 29 registered IRI centers in my zone. These centers began 7 years ago in an effort to educate the over 800,000 Zambian Children who were without access to education. The government of Zambia together with USAID and Peace Corps created a type of interactive radio instruction specifically for Zambia called "Learning at Taonga Market". This program is broadcast over the radio taught to the student with the help of a mentor. These IRI centers are sometimes simply an agreed upon location that the mentor and students meet at, sometimes a simple mud and thatch building, and in rare cases a brick building complete with a metal roof. Most IRI centers have grades 1, 2 and 3 but few currently have more than grade 5.

Above is one of my closest counterparts Moses Banda and a mentor at Ulemu IRI center. She is holding the radio on which she is able to receive the radio broadcasts and standing in front of her class of around 50 1st graders.

Below is Chamelenje IRI center with 2 mentors teaching 1st and 2nd graders with them. The students are often older than age 7 when entering grade one so you might notice some rather tall 2nd graders.

These centers are the leading edge in Zambia's attempt to full educate it's population. Currently the literacy rate in Eastern province is 49.7% (the lowest in the country).

From the beginning in 2000 IRI centers used IRI lessons to educate their students (as their name suggests). However due to the overwhelming success of the program IRI lessons have been expanded into all government and community schools as well. The government and community schools started with grade 1 this year, next year will include grade two in IRI lessons and so on. This is largely the result of a study comparing student success rates in both IRI centers and government schools. Students at the IRI centers preformed comparably with their government school peers despite the often much worse material conditions. With passing year more students will be receiving radio based lessons which provides a cost effective education for students who would otherwise have no education. However access both to schools and especially to grades 8 thru 12 remains quite concerning. I've got my work cut out for me. ;)