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Radio Program Draws Young and Old to School

Bumba Nachuuka (right) with her friend Agnes Hamoomba outside their classroom block in the Southern Province of Zambia (USAID PHOTO/Gerald Mwale).

NAKABWE, Zambia - It does not bother 60-year-old Bumba Nachuuka that she is learning how to read and write with girls and boys who would otherwise be her grand or even great grandchildren. Since early 2006, she has been faithfully attending Grade-3 class at Nakabwe Community School in Chief Fwenuka's area in the Southern Province of Zambia. The community school is part of the Interactive Radio Instruction (IRI) program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Bumba shares a class with 10-and 11-year-olds, who are only now beginning to master the alphabet and numbers. Moving at the same pace with the rest of the class, Bumba can now count and add simple numbers and write a few words and sentences in both English and her native language, Tonga.

She felt she was missing out and was troubled that she could not read the Bible like her peers. So she chose to go to class with the village students. "Education is good. You can read and learn things on your own without relying on other people who might even cheat you," she says. She prefers learning with the children to ignorance.

The driving force behind the IRI program is the popular radio program, "Learning at Taonga Market," produced by the Ministry of Education. The program covers Zambian language, English language and literacy, mathematics, science, social studies and life skills, including prevention of HIV/AIDS.

The lessons are written and recorded by the Educational Broadcasting Services (EBS) and are broadcast by the national radio, the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) and some community radio stations in rural areas.

Started as a pilot project in 2000 with 22 centers, the program has expanded to 857 centers reaching 70,000 students. Although primarily targeted for children, adults like Bumba have joined the lessons and are now part of the growing number of "pupils" learning through radio.

More than 2,000 radio sets have been distributed to the centers. A 30-minute radio lesson covers three or more subjects and is used as an instruction manual for volunteer teachers. Community schools, such as the one Bumba attends, serve populations in the areas where government schools are few and can only take in a limited number of pupils.