CHAPTER FOUR
In-Principle Approaches

INTRODUCTION

The first three chapters of this report have provided a detailed overview of the field of education with which this report is concerned, as well as describing international broadcasting experiences in the field. This information provides a critical platform for any strategic planning exercise, and highlights a range of key issues on which the success of any educational intervention that will be supported by television broadcasting will depend. Before presenting a range of scenarios for such interventions, though, it is necessary to formulate a clear statement of the operational principles and assumptions on which such scenarios will depend. This general platform can then be used by SABC Education regardless of which specific intervention/s are finally selected.

By way of introducing a discussion of in-principle approaches, it is important to stress that this research process has focused on roles that educational television broadcasting can play in supporting structured educational interventions aimed at adults or youths (as defined in chapter one).

The Educational Broadcasting Plan released in early 1996 makes a distinction between educative and educational broadcasting as follows:

Educative broadcasting comprises programming which is of general interest to the public and which is produced and flighted in almost all sections of a public broadcaster. It includes informative programming and generally relates to programmes, which increase the public’s knowledge and understanding of their context and the world. While educative programming plays an important role in all spheres of public interest, including education, it usually stands alone and does not depend on a close relationship with the processes of educational provision. Sometimes educative programming is referred to as informal educative programming.

Educational broadcasting, on the other hand, needs to follow a holistic approach, supporting integrated approaches to education and training, and life-long learning. It can be defined to include programmes, activities and events which support structured educational processes, whether they be of a formal of non-formal kind. Two characteristics distinguish educational broadcasting from educative broadcasting:

• First, educational broadcasting is closely related to the task of educational provision. The educational task needs to be established by the relevant education provider. Then decisions need to be made as to how the curriculum or the course will be designed and delivered, and what role educational broadcasting will play in the delivery. As a result, the strategies for the design, delivery and usage of these programmes are quite different from that of educative broadcasting.

• Second, while the public broadcasting system must treat South Africans’ needs for education, information and entertainment in a holistic way, educational broadcasting must function at different levels and, where necessary, meet the special educational needs of audiences (e.g. for classroom support, adult basic education and training, teacher development, professional skills development, etc.) (Department of Education, 1996, p.12)

Although many interviewees consulted during this process stressed the role of television broadcasting in raising awareness about key social issues and motivating potential learners to seek educational opportunities – the educative function of broadcasting – we have not focused on following up these types of recommendations (except where this would form one part of a broader, structured educational intervention in which the SABC is a key partner). The intention here has not been to exclude these roles for broadcasting. On the contrary, as our analysis of educational broadcasting conducted in planning a school-based educational broadcasting service demonstrates, these are already roles played by SABC educational broadcasting, and we strongly support the continuation of these ‘educative’ functions (see appendix five).

Nevertheless, this report explores whether or not there are specific roles that television broadcasting can play in supporting more structured educational interventions aimed at youths and adults. Thus, the general principles articulated below – and the scenarios sketched out in the following chapter – focus primarily on understanding roles for public broadcasting within this much more specific contribution to education and training in South Africa.

Understanding the Problem
As we have demonstrated in chapters one and three of this report, a key challenge facing South Africa in this period of social change is the need to transform an education and training system which has been ravaged by many years of apartheid educational policy and international isolation. At the same time as the country’s education and training system is expected to deal with this difficult process of transformation, however, it is being exposed to many other pressures which it shares in common with all education and training systems around the world. These include: rapid development and convergence in functionality of information, communications, and broadcasting technologies; deteriorating boundaries of nationality and national markets; growing pressure on traditional education and training to provide access to far larger numbers of students, of all ages; a crisis of confidence in traditional approaches to education, which have often confused education with transfer of information; and dwindling funding - in real terms - for education and training purposes in the public sector.

Unsurprisingly, in seeking to find solutions to these problems, many educators are exploring the potential role of educational technologies in meeting these challenges. Unfortunately, however, there is a widespread legacy of failed technological initiatives in South African and world education, many of which have involved extensive use of radio and television broadcasting. Reasons for these failures are many and varied, but include the following:

• Imposition of inflexible technological choices made without reference to educational need and context;

• Lack of investment in integrated curriculum and course design and development processes;

• Integrating technologies into programmes based on poor pedagogical practice (a problem especially acute in South Africa where the legacy of fundamental pedagogics is still so strong);

• Unexpectedly high operating costs, and a very high percentage of total expenditure on recurrent costs, which militates against achieving economies of scale;

• Underestimation of the need for well-developed systems of student support, designed as an integral part of overall courses;

• Lack of attention to designing and implementing effective management and administrative systems; and

• Paucity of people with the necessary skills and expertise to staff programmes, and a corresponding absence of clear professional development strategies designed to overcome this problem.

Any exploration initiated by the SABC to find possible ways in which it can help to solve some of the educational problems articulated in this report is in danger of developing one or more of the structural weaknesses mentioned above. Most importantly, this research exercise itself is problematized because it aims to seek roles for a particular technology – television – rather than being driven by a focused quest for solutions to specific educational problems.

Counterbalancing this concern, though, is extensive research that has already been undertaken which focuses on understanding the nature and extent of the educational needs and requirements of adults and youth (as has been documented in this report). In addition, South Africa is fortunate to have many committed people who have worked hard to develop strategies to meet these needs, often in the face of very challenging odds. This research exercise has therefore drawn heavily on the experiences of such people to ensure that the primary purpose of this research exercise does not prejudice its findings. One consequence of this has been that our research has focused first on identifying educational needs that are not currently being met. This has then been followed by processes of exploring whether or not there are potential roles for television in supporting new educational interventions that aim to meet this need. The scenarios presented in the following chapter have emerged from this. We believe this lays a solid foundation for SABC Education.

Where Does Television Fit?

Given the above comments, it becomes particularly important to understand where television can potentially fit into a structured educational intervention. The following diagram helps to explain where educational technologies – including television – can be usefully integrated into structured educational interventions:

Figure one is a graphical representation of the teaching and learning environment; it can be applied to any teaching and learning context using any methods of educational provision. Each element is described in detail.

Learners
As the broad principle of learner-centredness starts to gain credence in South African education and training, it becomes ever more important to be aware of the features of the group or groups of learners for which a planned or existing programme is intended. Developing an understanding of the target group/s of learners in the teaching and learning process and their circumstances is essential in the planning or updating/ amending of any educational programme. As part of this, it is vital to focus on the learning objectives of the programme, developing an understanding of the programme's curriculum. These issues are included here because the development of the curriculum should focus on the needs of learners. It is also important to look broadly at the needs of a range of organizations relevant to the learners, for example employers and community organizations. This also ultimately affects the developing picture of the learners’ needs in very important ways, because these cannot be separated from the broader context in which they live and work.

Teaching and Learning Processes
The design of any course will involve a combination of teaching and learning processes, whether they be structured or not. These will be based on different educational approaches (for example, content mastery, skills mastery, drill and practice, problem solving, exploratory project work, or applied knowledge-based) and methodologies (for example, learner-centred, teacher-centred, peer group and team work, or constructivist). Most, but not all, teaching and learning processes will be planned by the educational provider during course design and development (whether the educational provider be an institution or the training arm of a large organization). These processes involve an interface or engagement between learners and the educational provider, using a range of activities, strategies, mechanisms, and techniques. The focus of teaching and learning processes is to achieve the stated objectives of a particular course, regardless of what those objectives are. A few examples of teaching and learning processes would be tutorial sessions, lectures, practical work, peer group discussions, watching videos, working through study guides, assignments, and examinations. It is essential to develop an understanding of the teaching and learning processes planned in educational courses in order to choose technologies to support them.

Communication
All education and training involves processes of communication between the educational provider and learners, and it is essential to develop an understanding of the modes of communication most appropriate to a particular teaching and learning process. Any teaching and learning process consists of combinations of these kinds of modes of communication, which in turn support the teaching and learning strategies and activities of a particular course. This communication can either be one-way or two-way, depending on need. Communication can take place in various ways:

• face-to-face, for example, in classes, tutorials or practical sessions;

• via correspondence, whether it involves post, courier, fax, or electronic mail;

• using printed media of various kinds, which can either be distributed via correspondence or in face-to-face sessions;

• using audio such as radio, audio cassettes, compact discs, telephone calls, or audio conferencing;

• using video, for example, one-way broadcasting, video, or video-conferencing;

• using computers and computer-based multi-media, whether they be stand-alone or part of a network.

As the diagram illustrates, communication can either be directly between educational provider and learner or mediated by the use of course materials or educational resources.

Course Materials
Introducing technological hardware into education and training is generally the easiest part of the process, and often ends up being the cheapest in the long term. The development of course materials to be used with such technologies, whether they be printed resources, video cassettes, or computer-based resources, is far more costly and time-consuming, and is also ongoing. The following quotation gives some examples of course materials design time:

‘Lee and Zemke cite a range of estimates of the time required to prepare instructional materials for one hour of students study time. McDonnell Douglas Aeronautics Company estimates that one hour of student contact time using printed materials requires, for the best quality, some 274 hours of design...Charles Jackson of the U.S. army... estimates 100 hours of design for each hour of instruction by print, 200 for video tape, and 300 for computer-based training.’(Moore, M., 1990, Vol 6, No.2, pp.1)

Often, however, course materials design and development is the process in which least time and money is invested, with the result that the resources developed end up being of little positive educational value. In looking to enhance the flexibility and cost-effectiveness of education and training, South Africa will need to start implementing resource-based methods of learning. If this is to happen successfully, it will be necessary to consider new models of funding and managing resource development. Unless this takes place, and suitable mechanisms are found for sharing these resources, the introduction of many technologies into education and training is likely be of marginal educational value and to remain fairly cost-ineffective.

Sites of Teaching and Learning
All teaching and learning strategies and activities take place at one or more ‘sites’. Conventionally, people have tended to equate sites of teaching and learning with schools and universities, but the development of more flexible approaches to education and training is gradually making it clear that there are multiple sites. These would include schools, universities, colleges, and technikons, but would also include community centres, the home, the workplace, and a range of other physical locations. Any education and training programme could involve teaching and learning strategies and activities at more than one teaching and learning site. It is vital to know the sites at which teaching and learning will take place, because the physical infrastructure available at these sites will influence choices of technologies. For example, there is no point in developing a distance education programme that requires students to work on computers if the majority of students will not have access to computer facilities at home or at a local learning centre.

Educational Provider
Internationally, the term ‘educational provider’ is coming to be understood as the whole structure offering programmes in any sector of education and training. This structure might be an educational institution, a consortium of organizations, a private business (or department within a business), a non-governmental organization, or a government department. The description of the educational provider in any educational programme would, therefore, include the following elements:

• Finances;

• Educators;

• Curriculum design and development;

• Course materials design and development;

• Student counselling (pre- and in-programme);

• Technical support;

• Professional development strategies;

• Administrative and management systems;

• Quality assurance strategies; and
  Marketing.

Educational Technologies
There are three broad applications for educational technologies, as the diagram above illustrates. These provide clarity as to where possible applications for television may lie, and we have used this as a guide in compiling the scenarios contained in chapter five.

• Technologies to support the educational provider
  Technologies have a crucial role to play in supporting the educational provider itself, particularly in its day-to-day management and administration. Regretfully, however, this important use is often neglected, both in policy statements and in the deliberations of people planning the use of technologies to support education and training. While some technologies, such as telephones and filing cabinets, have long been used for these purposes, there is a growing understanding that the rapid development of information and communications technologies provide significant opportunities for generating savings in this area of education and training and also for leading to more effective management and administration systems. For example, the growing use of databases and information warehouses, together with the explosion in the use of e-mail to facilitate quick, cheap communication are two relatively simple applications of such technologies that can prove very cost-effective.

• Technologies to support delivery of resources
  A crucial role that technologies can play in supporting education and training is to support the delivery of educational resources, particularly course materials. These technologies are made up predominantly of the wide range of information and communications technologies, from the printed book and other printed materials through television and radio to multimedia computers and the Internet.

A defining characteristic of such applications of technologies is the implicit requirement that this will demand some investment in course materials design and development processes. Thus, the technologies covered by this group would not only support delivery of resources by making these available to students, but also support course materials design and development processes.

For example, the technologies required for printing books - as well as the technology of the book itself - are necessary to make these resources available to students. Behind this, however, lies increasing use of computers - word processors, graphics programmes, desktop publishing - that support the development of the printed resource. Both the development and distribution of resources should, therefore, be considered when making investments in this area.

• Technologies to support teaching and learning processes
  The provision of course materials is an important part of the teaching and learning processes in all education and training, whether face-to-face or at a distance. In addition, however, there are many technologies that might support other teaching and learning processes. Some of these can be used generally in any education and training programme, such as white boards or overhead projectors, while others might be referred to as specialist technologies, such as woodwork equipment or language laboratories. Again, the range of technologies covered by this group ranges from the very simple, such as pen and paper, to the very sophisticated, such as computerized simulators. Convergence in the functionality of technologies is blurring the roles of technologies that directly support teaching and learning processes and those that support provision of course materials. For example, educators may use video conferencing both to deliver pre-designed resources and to support live discussion between geographically separate groups (or to deliver live lectures). Likewise, e-mail can be used to support communication amongst educators and learners, as well as to deliver pre-designed resources.

Embedded in the above discussion are two distinct questions: ‘what new educational interventions are required?’; and ‘are there roles for television in supporting these interventions?’ Answers to these questions have to focus on understanding teaching and learning environments in their entirety, as they have been described above. This suggests that a complicated series of questions needs to be answered during the implementation planning process, the first phase of which has culminated in this report. These questions have informed our research process. Some have been answered during this research process and some will still require answers during the second phase of implementation planning proposed in chapter six of this report. They are summarized below, together with statements of which processes have provided or will provide answers to them.

The above questions model the decision-making approach developed by the Department of Education in its Technology-Enhanced Learning Investigation. This approach has provided the basic model for this strategic planning exercise, and should continue to inform it, regardless of choices finally made about the educational intervention/s that SABC Education will support. The remainder of this chapter focuses on identifying a range of principles on which such interventions will need to be based.

The focus in this strategic planning exercise on structured educational interventions suggests a need to build on experiences in the conceptualization and implementation of large-scale educational programmes. For this reason, we believe it is very important to include some reflection on distance education in this chapter. We begin by presenting lessons emerging from high quality distance education practices around the world, and follow this up with discussion about changing conceptual frameworks. The ideas presented below will need to form the basis of any proposed educational intervention such as those described in the following chapter, regardless of its specific focus.

Components of Well-Functioning Distance Education
Given the focus of this report, it is useful to provide some guidelines for well-functioning distance education. Experience of distance education practices in South Africa has shown that poorly designed distance education programmes can be very damaging, both in terms of the negative experiences of learners and of the development of financially wasteful educational systems. The principles presented below have emerged from years of distance education practice around the world. They provide an essential guide to the SABC and its potential partners in constructing an appropriate educational intervention aimed at youth or adults, which aims to make effective use of television.

1. Course Design and Development
1.1. Well-designed courses
In good distance education, the course, rather than the educator, provides an appropriate learning environment for students. Rather than simply referring to a set of materials, however, the course is the structure of learning that is designed into the materials. It has four basic elements:
• Conceptual pathways to command of its knowledge, conceptualizing skills, and practical abilities.
• Educational strategies for helping the learner find his or her way through these pathways.
• Summative and formative assessment that are integral to the learning process.
• Materials and presentation of the course as a whole that excite, engage, and reward the learner. Courses should be designed so as to involve learners actively in their own learning, and should allow learners quick access and clear movement through them. Although there is no need for courses to use advanced technologies, most, but not necessarily all, will make use of a variety of media. Provision should also be made, in the design of courses, for the necessary practical work. In order to be as flexible and open as possible, courses should be organized in modules.

1.2. Programme and course development in a team
An essential component in the successful design of courses is collaboration. This can be achieved by using an approach where a group of people, each with particular skills and competencies, develop a course as a team. Although there is no golden mean, nor indeed an absolute minimum, a substantial ratio of staff course design time to learner study time will be inevitable in developing courses. Some of the better courses in more challenging subjects, however, might have ratios of fifty to one hundred hours of design time to one hour of learner study time. This has clear implications for courses designed for small numbers of students: they are simply not financially viable if collaborative design processes are to be used.

2. Counselling and Support
2.1. Counselling
Provision should be made by distance education providers to advise and help individuals who would otherwise be isolated throughout the learning process, and, in particular, to help them to make choices before enrolling for educational programmes. It should be made easily available through a variety of devices including, most importantly, human intervention.

2.2. Learner support
If learners are to adapt to the special requirements of guided self-study, they require various forms of support, for example satisfactory access to tutors and facilitators, opportunity to interact with other learners, and access to the necessary facilities.

2.3. Provision of adequate administrative support to learners
This would involve administrative support on a number of levels, including enrolment procedures, payment of fees, delivery of materials, and in keeping channels of communication open. The aim, throughout, should be to keep administrative procedures few and simple.

3. Quality Assurance
3.1. Quality assurance in all learning programmes
Several mechanisms need to be established to ensure the quality of learning programmes and their capacity for self-improvement. One of the most critical of these is a mechanism that enables meaningful and reliable feedback from learners and tutors into the ongoing performance of the institution.

3.2. Research, evaluation, and development
As with all aspects of education, continuing research, evaluation, and development is necessary for the improvement of distance education provision. Distance education providers also need to have effective research as the basis for improving the quality of their performance.

4. Effectively Managed Distance Learning
Effectively managing distance education involves establishing performance criteria and targets for the institution, together with mechanisms for publicly and regularly evaluating performance and incorporating lessons learned into improved practices. It also includes ensuring that governance structures are representative of South African society and that the learner body is adequately represented in such structures.

Distance Education and Face-to-Face Education: An Outdated Dichotomy
The growth of distance education methods of delivery has been a key feature of education in the twentieth century. Initially, these methods were developed as distinctly different from face-to-face education, with the unfortunate consequence that they were regarded as inferior to face-to-face education methods. Distance education has come to be seen as provision for those people denied access to face-to-face education (either because they cannot afford the latter or because circumstances demand that they study on a part-time basis). The growth of new communications technologies has, however, begun to make the notion of distance difficult to interpret, while creating a number of educationally and financially viable new means of providing education. Simultaneously, awareness is growing that elements of distance education have almost always existed in face-to-face programmes, while educators involved in distance education are increasingly recognizing the importance of different types of face-to-face education as structured elements of their programmes. This trend has rendered rigid distinctions between the two modes of delivery meaningless.

This leads to an important conceptual shift. In many circles, the notion of a continuum of educational provision has been developed. This continuum has, as two imaginary poles provision only at a distance and provision which is solely face-to-face. The reality is that all educational provision exists somewhere on this continuum, but cannot be placed strictly at either pole. Re-conceptualizing methods of educational provision as existing somewhere on this imaginary continuum will have the result that certain methods of provision are no longer chosen to the exclusion of others, depending on whether they are distance or face-to-face education opportunities (as currently happens in South African education). Rather, educational providers, when constructing educational courses, will be able to choose, from a wide variety, those methods which are most appropriate for the context in which they will be providing learning opportunities.

Another major advantage of this blurring is that distance educators and face-to-face educators will turn from meaningless debates about the relative virtues of particular methods of educational provision, to consideration of the nature of learning and the educational value of a courses structure and content. Educators often find it necessary to equate particular methods of education with good quality education, in an effort to market the programmes they are offering and give them added status over programmes using different methods of provision. The notion of this continuum is free of such premature and unnecessary judgements about quality. We believe it should form the basis of any strategic planning process undertaken by SABC in the follow-up to this report.

It needs to be made clear that no method of educational provision is intrinsically better than another; rather, the appropriateness of selecting a particular method or combination of methods is determined entirely by the context in which they are to be used, the educational needs they are intended to fulfil, and how they are implemented. This conceptual shift is vital in changing the structure of the education and training system. In particular, it will allow for greater flexibility and open up possibilities of collaboration, both of which are vital to an improvement in educational quality and in the cost-effectiveness of educational provision, issues of particular relevance to this research exercise.

The Growth of Resource-Based Learning
A logical consequence of the collapse of distinctions between contact and distance education, together with the increasingly exciting variety of media available and decline in production and reception costs of these media, is the emergence of resource-based learning. The concept is not new; it is based on the principle that educators should select, from the full range of educational provision, those methods of educational provision most appropriate to the context in which they are providing education. This principle is, however, augmented by the understanding that managing the process of learning by using a talking lecturer is neither educationally nor financially effective. Thus, the key principle underpinning the concept of resource-based learning is investment in the development of high quality resources to perform the task of communicating curriculum to students.

Use of resource-based learning has the result that a significant but varying proportion of communication between learners and educators is not face-to-face, but takes place through educational resources using different media as necessary. Importantly, face-to-face contact which does take place does not involve simple transmission of knowledge from educator to learner. Instead it involves various forms of learner support, for example tutorials, mentor support, peer group discussion, or practical work.

The introduction of resource-based learning is already emerging strongly in the 1990s as more contact institutions (including universities and colleges of education) are becoming dual-mode institutions, offering both distance and face-to-face education programmes. Contact institutions are making this move both to cope with increasing pressure on places at contact institutions and to find more cost-effective ways of providing education in a context of dwindling funds. As the distinctions between the two modes of education continue to collapse, however, it is becoming increasingly difficult to identify which programmes are being offered in which mode (particularly as resources developed for distance education programmes are now being used in many contact programmes). The emergence of new communications technologies, which allow for much easier and cheaper production and dissemination of knowledge, through various media, has sped up these trends.

If resource-based learning is to be implemented successfully in South African education and training, it will need to be based on open approaches to education and be informed by many of the guidelines for well-functioning distance education programmes. By making this shift, however, it will be possible to develop a new education and training system for which can begin to tackle the many problems identified in recent policy research processes by finding cost-effective, sustainable solutions.

What are the Attractions of Distance Education and Resource-Based Learning?
Whether consciously or unconsciously, attempts to make use of distance education methods and resource-based learning by various educators in South Africa over the past few years have been driven by a desire to build on some or all of the following lessons emerging from the respective histories of distance education and resource-based learning:

1. Distance Education
1.1. Providing access to students who would – either because of work commitments, geographical distance, or poor quality or inadequate prior learning experiences – be denied access to traditional, full-time face-to-face education opportunities.
1.2. Seeking to expand access to educational provision to significantly larger numbers of learners.
1.3. Shifting patterns of expenditure to achieve economies of scale by amortizing identified costs (particularly investments in course design and development and in effective administrative systems) over time and large student numbers.

2. Resource-Based Learning
2.1. Breaking down the traditional notion that a teacher talking to mostly passive students is the most effective strategy for communicating curriculum.
2.2. Directing a significantly larger proportion of total expenditure to the design and development of high quality resources, as a strategy for building and assuring the quality of educational provision.
2.3. Implementing strategies to shift the role of the educator. Draft government policy statements on the use of technologies in education and training summarize this changing role as follows:

• They will become facilitators and managers of learning in situations where they are no longer the source of all knowledge.

• They will plan, negotiate for, and manage the integration of learning in formal institutions, in the workplace, and in communities.

• Many educators may spend a considerable proportion of their workloads contributing to the preparation of courseware.

• Many will interact with learners at a distance through any one, or any combinations, of a variety of media (of which real-time face to face interaction is only one of many possibilities).

• Preparation, management, and logistics will vary greatly between the following modes of communication:

- interaction with learners;
- presentation of one way television broadcast;
- video conference that hooks up a number of - - remote sites;
- written response to a learner’s assignment;
and
- face to face facilitation.

• It will be essential that educators design and administer complicated, increasingly computer-based record-keeping systems that keep track of learners’ progress through their individual learning pathways, pathways that reflect individual variations in learning content, learning sequence, learning strategies, the learning resources, media and technologies chosen to support them, and the pace of learning.

• Increasing proportions of educators’ work will involve them as members of teams to which they will contribute only some of the required expertise, and of which they will not necessarily be the leaders, managers, or coordinators.

2.4. Investigating the potential that the integration of new educational technologies into teaching and learning environments has for supporting, improving, or enhancing those environments.

If they are to be successful, educational interventions aimed at youth and adults seeking to integrate effective use of television will need to build on these lessons.

Distance Education and Technology-Enhanced Learning
Regretfully, simplistic use of terminology has crept further into the field of educational technology. This new trend, particularly pervasive in American educational debates, has been to use ‘distance education’ and ‘educational technology’ interchangeably or even as a single, composite term. The most obvious problem with this is that is simply an illogical inference. Educational technologies are used regularly in face-to-face educational environments, whether they be ‘old’ technologies like print or whiteboards or ‘new’ technologies like data projectors or personal computers.

More importantly, though, the use of distance education and educational technology as interchangeable or composite phrases introduces a blurring conflation of the terms, which – at least in South Africa – has led to poor quality strategic planning. In many ways, it is similar to the conceptual integration of open learning and distance education in the United Kingdom and Australia – open and distance learning – which created a real misperception that distance education was intrinsically ‘open’. In the same way, many people here harnessing educational technologies think they are harnessing the benefits of distance education, when, in most cases, they are simply finding technologically clever ways of replicating traditional, face-to-face educational models. Many of these projects have blazed a sad trail of failed educational technology projects in South Africa, wasting huge amounts of time and money. It will be important to ensure that any educational interventions emerging from this research process do not repeat such cycles of failure. On the positive side, these experiences have valuable lessons for the SABC, so there is no reason why it need repeat many of these costly mistakes. Many of these lessons are articulated in the principles provided in this chapter. Detailed descriptions of related planning principles concerning use of educational technology are also contained in the complementary report Educational Technologies: Strategic Choices for SABC Education, which has also been developed by SAIDE for SABC Education.

The purpose of articulating these issues is not to submerge such projects in a quagmire of unachievable principles, which effectively prevents action or implementation. Rather, it is an effort to extrapolate essential lessons demonstrated by recent local and international experience in order to ensure that future projects build on this experience rather than repeating costly and educationally pointless exercises. All of them are directly relevant to an educational intervention using television (amongst other technologies) that targets adults and/or youth.

The discussion above has focused on describing a range of general principles and concepts that can usefully inform any educational intervention responding to the need of identified groups of adults or youths of which the SABC will be part. In addition to these important lessons, however, there are various specific in-principle approaches emerging from this research process. As with the above, these can usefully inform any educational intervention, regardless of its specific curriculum focus. Not only are they useful principles, they have significantly informed our thinking in constructing the scenarios which follow in chapter five.

Target Audiences
We have pointed out in chapter one that this educational terrain is distinguished from other learning sectors by, amongst other things, the vastness and complexity of the learner audience. The focus is potentially on those people aged fifteen and over who are not necessarily engaged in conventional full-time schooling or higher education (the majority of whom are poor working class men and women in rural and urban areas). Various principles flow from this:

• Resist the tendency to regard adults and youth as a single, composite audience. Interviewees stressed the importance of not conflating the educational needs of adults and youth, as they are so substantially different that each needs to be tackled separately.

• As an extension of the above principle, it is vital to identify a specific – and potentially substantial – target audience for any proposed intervention. The scenarios presented in the following chapter have all been chosen, in part, because there are many South Africans who stand to benefit from their implementation. Furthermore, they have potential for success because they have identified very specific target audiences with identifiable needs. Thus, the scenarios are characterized by specificity of focus, rather than by an attempt to appeal to a broad, general audience. Once a specific intervention has been selected, the following more specific questions about the target audience should be answered:

1. Can the learners be identified as a discrete, homogenous group, or are there significant differences between them?
2. How old are the learners?
        • What is the range of ages of the learners?
        • If the range of ages is fairly wide (for example 18 years to 50 years), will this mean that different learners have different learning needs? What will these differences be?
3. What is the educational background and learning experience of the learners? Describe the educational experience that learners bring to their learning situation.
4. Are you able to describe the learners’ entry level skills? Does this include prior experience gained outside of formal education and training programmes?
        • What is their attitude towards learning?
        • Have they developed particular learning ‘styles’? What are these?
        • Have they experienced a resource-based approach to learning? Have they experience of using or learning from a range of technologies and media other than print?
        • Do they have independent learning/study skills?
        • Have they experience with using libraries, resource centres, or other sources of information or learning resources?
        • Are they information literate?
        • Have the learners ever been denied access to conventional teaching and learning institutions? What were the reasons (their location, equity, unemployment, poverty, working arrangements, or other)?

5. Why will the learners take this programme or course?

• What are the needs of the learners?
• What are the demands of the learners?
• What will motivate learners to enrol for this programme or course?

Are they enrolling out of personal choice or because of the intervention of some external agency (such as an employer, parent, or government policy)? If an external agency, is it an employer, parent, government policy, or some other agency?

        • Are there specific needs in business and/or industry that this programme or course will attempt to cater for? What are they?
        • Are there specific needs in the learners’ community that this programme or course will attempt to cater for? What are they?
        • Are there specific needs in government that this programme or course will attempt to cater for? What are they?
        • Do the answers to the above three questions modify your understanding of why learners might enrol for this programme or course? (For example, are they workers required upgrading or more advanced training?)

6. What is known of the personal circumstances of the learners?
• What types of area do the learners live in?
• What are the main features of the area/s in which learners live?
– Does it have a regular water supply?
– Does it have adequate sanitation?
– Does it have good road access?
– Are there other modes of transport available in the area? What are they?
– Does it have a reliable supply of electricity?
– Does it have telephone lines?
– Does it have a reliable postal system?
– Does it have a local Internet service provider?
• What teaching and learning sites are in the area? Schools? Community Centres? Colleges of Education, Nursing, or Agriculture? Technical Colleges? Community Colleges? Universities? Technikons? Other possible sites of teaching and learning?
• Are there other physical structures in the area/s which might be used as teaching and learning sites? What are they?
• What communications technologies do most learners have easy access to in the area/s in which they live? What communications technologies are they likely to know how to use?

7. Are most of the learners employed or not?

8. If most are employed, do they work in very similar workplace environments or not?

9. If the answer to the above question is yes, then what are the main features of the area/s in which learners work?
• Does it have a regular water supply?
• Does it have adequate sanitation?
• Does it have good road access?
• Are there other modes of transport available in the area? What are they?
• Does it have a reliable supply of electricity?
• Does it have telephone lines?
• Does it have a reliable postal system?
• Does it have a local Internet service provider?
• What teaching and learning sites are in the area? Schools? Community Centres? Colleges of Education, Nursing, or Agriculture? Technical Colleges? Community Colleges? Universities? Technikons? Other possible sites of teaching and learning?
• Are there other physical structures in the area/s which might be used as teaching and learning sites?
• Are there spaces in the workplace which might be used as teaching and learning sites?
• What technologies do the vast majority of learners have easy access to in their places of work?

10. Will learners want to learn on a full-time or a part-time basis? How much time will they have available for this programme or course? (estimate a number of hours per week)

11. What is the mother tongue of the learners? Are there other languages that the learners will also be comfortable with?

12. Do learners have specialized needs or demands that must be met?
• What are the learners’ literacy levels?
• Do they have any physical disabilities?
• Do they have any learning disabilities?
• Do they suffer from a lack of direct educational experience or limited experience?
• Do the learners come from a background of educational experiences that may impede their progress through your programme or course?

13. What counselling might these students require (both before and after enrolling on the programme or course)?

This line of questioning will help to formulate a clear sense of the needs and contexts of the target audience, thus creating a vital platform for the intervention/s finally chosen.

Developing the Intervention
As we have emphasized in chapter one, the terrain of adult education and youth development is characterized by its multi-faceted nature. Furthermore, it is closely tied to social, political, and economic development. This spectrum of education is concerned with lifelong learning, and not only with technical or professional qualifications of adults. It carries implicit recognition that learning does not only take place through organized institutional processes, but occurs throughout life and in a variety of different contexts. Likewise, learning occurs at a variety of learning sites, including the workplace, night-schools, NGOs, community centres, and education institutions. This creates both challenges and opportunities to SABC Education, as it considers appropriate educational interventions for this area.

Emerging from this are various principles that need to be taken into account when planning a new intervention in this area. These build on the principles articulated above for identifying target audiences. We list some of the more important that have emerged throughout our research:

Any intervention must be informed and driven by specific needs of proposed target audiences. As we have indicated, this need not result in extensive primary research activity. There are many people working in the fields of adult education and youth development in South Africa, who have extensive understanding of the needs of potential target audiences. We have used this understanding to compile the scenarios presented in the following chapter. It is important, however, that the process of needs analysis not stop at this point. Once a specific intervention has been selected, additional needs analysis, particularly involving discussion with the target audience, should be undertaken as this will constitute crucial formative research.

Clear objectives and goals must be outlined from the outset. This principle is essential to the concept of outcomes-based learning, a key concept on which the national qualifications framework has been built. If the aim of a broadcasting intervention is to support an accredited qualification, learning outcomes must be identified and spelt out. Broad aims must be broken down into manageable objectives which should be stated explicitly and in detail. As part of this work, it will be critical to identify strategies for assessing the progress of learners and criteria according to which their progress can be assessed. This forms part of course design and development, which will be key to the success of the programme. A diagram outlining course design and development processes is provided in chapter five of the complementary report, Educational Technologies: Strategic Choices for SABC Education, which has also been developed by SAIDE for SABC Education.

Educational interventions in this area need to be based on open learning principles if they are to be effective. These principles are articulated in appendix four of this report. Although there are many tensions between the different principles underpinning open learning, they nevertheless provide an essential guide for education and training aimed at the target audiences identified in this report.

Provision of adult education needs to be linked to the new integrated education and training system. Likewise, any educational intervention must be complementary to, and support, the goals, values, and principles of the Departments of Education and Labour. Unless the service supports the work of the education departments, it is unlikely to achieve any real success. The special relationship between the national Department of Education and the SABC that has led to the formulation of this plan provides a solid foundation for any intervention. In addition, the processes of needs analysis and course design and development outlined above will help the intervention to meet the criteria of the South African Qualifications Authority, in this way ensuring that it brings accredited recognition to learners.

Educational opportunities in this area must focus on achieving a number of concurrent goals. For example, they need to provide learners with the necessary academic competencies that will enable them to enter higher education programmes, if they so choose, while also presenting them with the necessary opportunities to extend their skills for occupational purposes. These concurrent goals should be identified as part of the processes outlined above.

An additional principle emerging for design and development of programmes is that references, language, and images used in the intervention must reflect the reality faced by most learners, and encourage use of resource to which they are likely to have access. Many evaluations of programming, particularly in television, have yielded responses from educators and learners that the programmes bear no relation to the realities they face. Obviously, given the complexity and diversity of South African society, it is impossible to use references, language, and images that reflect all South African society. Nevertheless, it remains essential to ensure that the service as a whole draws on references, language, and images that reflect this diversity and complexity. In particular, it is necessary to ensure that equity of representation is restored, so that the service grows in relevance to the majority of South African people. A key component to ensuring this is to open access to the production processes, for example by involving educators in production processes and by increasing field-based production capacity, as well as field-based research and evaluation. Finally, equity in language use will also need to be integrated into planning for the overall service. Of course, there is no uniform reality facing either learners or teachers in South Africa, and consequently it will be necessary to reflect and juxtapose the multiple realities of different educational settings.

Key Components to the Intervention
This chapter has stressed the importance of designing an integrated educational intervention of which broadcasting is only one part. Obviously, broadcasting, in itself, will not be sufficient to ensure the success of the intervention, as SABC Education is already well aware. Consequently, it is worth listing some of the key components of any intervention that might be important to ensuring its success. These should, however, be read in conjunction with the principles of well-functioning distance education provided earlier in this chapter.

Formal recognition for learners who successfully complete the full educational programme. If this intervention is to be successful, it will have to ensure that learners can receive formal recognition for their learning achievements if they successfully meet identified assessment criteria on completion. This is not intended to suggest that the intervention should be designed solely for this purpose (see following principle), but it will be important to ensure that the intervention attracts learners and provides them with tangible benefits. As part of this, it will also be important to devise strategies for recognizing prior learning experiences.

Mixed media approach. Given that television will only form one component of the proposed intervention, it will be critical to ensure that an effective mixed media approach is developed for the intervention. The precise nature of the approach will, of course, depend on the nature of the intervention. This will have to take account of the needs and preferences of learners. For example, ABET learners are not likely to purchase printed resources, as distribution for the New Readers Project illustrated. Most purchases for books are made through ABE educators, libraries or resource centres. The New Readers Project research report states that:

Distribution remains a problem area. Poor people do not buy books in any numbers and as ABE adults are mostly poor, this will continue to be the case. Rather than research on more effective ways of selling books, research should look at more effective ways in which books can be circulated rather than sold. This is especially necessary in rural areas. Careful research in this field would make a positive contribution to accessibility of easy readers for adults.

Effective design of broadcast resources. This is an obvious point, but worth noting given inputs from various interviewees. Many interviewees felt that educational broadcast programmes do not exploit popular formats enough, and the value of educational drama is underestimated. They highlighted that, although television presents a range of techniques for actively engaging viewers, educational programmes were often tedious and ‘boring’. Thus, it is essential to make educational television more attractive to viewers. This requires creative and innovative production.

Strategies to ensure the interaction of learners. These strategies should be linked to the interventions learner support strategies (see discussion on distance education). They might involve interaction designed into materials themselves, assessment tasks, and one-to-one or group contact between educators and learners or amongst learners. Crucially, such support strategies will have to include elements of counselling and career guidance.

Effective marketing strategies. For any intervention to succeed, it will have to be supported by effective publicity or promotion strategies. These should not be developed as an add-on to the intervention once it is completed, but should be developed as part of the developmental work that goes into the intervention itself. This is critical, because the process of understanding what is likely to attract learners should be an essential component of the design of the intervention itself and not simply formulated ‘after the fact’. For example, building a picture of target learners is a critical component of both the intervention and the marketing strategy. Detailed information about promotion strategies has been provided in A School-Based Educational Broadcasting Service for South Africa, and this basic information can be used to develop a marketing strategy. From this, various promotion strategies might be identified, including use of print, radio and television broadcasts, and – possibly most important – word-of-mouth.

Levels of Engagement
Above, we have focused on providing principles that need to inform the conceptualization and implementation of the overall intervention. Nevertheless, it will be critical to ensure that the intervention is designed in such a way that it can be used in different ways by different people, depending on their requirements. Thus, it will be important to ensure that different aspects of the intervention are designed in such a way that they are useful in their own right. The way in which this would work would vary according to the specifics of the intervention, but the following hierarchy gives an indication of how this might function:

Learner watches television programmes only. Although we have stressed the importance of not relying solely on television for the educational intervention, it is important to ensure that the broadcast programmes are engaging and useful in their own right (particularly for people from the identified niche audiences). For many, this might be the limit of the engagement, either because they lack the time or financial resources to pursue learning opportunities further or because their geographical location makes participation impossible. In this context, the television programmes should still be useful enough to warrant viewing. In this way, they also function as a marketing mechanism for the overall intervention.

Learner watches television programme and works through study guides. This second level mirrors the first, and would apply in situations where study guides have been developed as part of the intervention. Some learners may not be able to, or may not want to, enrol with an educational provider in a formal educational programme, but may still be interested in learning about the curriculum areas covered by the intervention. In this instance, s/he should be able to purchase study guides to supplement the learning experience. Ideally, these should be readily available at a range of convenient outlets, such as local grocery or garage shops.

Learner enrols with educational provider for complete learning experience. The most sustained level of engagement would obviously be to enrol with an educational provider to complete a structured educational course or programme. This experience might be modularized to allow learners to enrol on a whole programme or only in those areas that most interest. Each module should, however, be accredited in its own right to ensure recognition of the learning experience is possible.

Building Effective Partnerships
An educational intervention such as those proposed in the following chapter involves a range of activities and functions for which the SABC cannot be expected to take responsibility. It will depend for its success on many agencies – from different sectors and backgrounds – working together effectively. Consequently, the educational intervention should attempt to function as a focal point, bringing together various existing initiatives. Given the nature of this research exercise, and the responses we received during interviews, it would appear that the SABC is well placed to function proactively in helping to create this focus. Nevertheless, it will be critical to establish formal, structured partnerships between various organizations to ensure the success of the intervention.

Much has been made recently of the importance of partnership and cooperation in South African education and training, particularly in a context of limited resources and massive need. Very often, however, the principle of encouraging and fostering partnership and cooperation has been presented unproblematically as something intrinsically ‘good’. Much recent educational experience in South Africa has demonstrated unequivocally, however, that establishing partnerships is no guarantee of better educational provision. On the contrary, a partnership established on weak foundations – and between partners with widely differing initial agendas – is much more likely to create impediments to effective educational provision and lead to resource wastage than organizations working in isolation.

The above observation is not a recommendation for abandoning partnerships. Rather, it points the way to identifying crucial ingredients for successful partnership, which SABC Education should take into account when initiating an educational intervention aimed at adults and/or youths. We would recommend that, rather than setting up separate agreements with different parties, the SABC should focus on establishing a common memorandum of agreement signed by all parties, outlining the specific responsibilities of each. This could be based on the following principles, amongst others:

Build partnerships between organizations and individuals with broadly similar objectives. This does not imply that there is no room for differences of opinion or approach to solving problems. Indeed, accommodating difference effectively within partnerships can create much better education. However, when philosophies or objectives are antithetical, partnership is very unlikely to work well.

Identify clearly the contributions of each partner - and their capacity to deliver accordingly - before beginning work.

Develop clear, commonly agreed principles for the operation of the partnership and strategies for dealing effectively - without creating hostility - with partners who fail to adhere to these principles. Examples might include:

• Assign responsibility for tasks to people and not organizations. In this respect, it is worth differentiating between responsibility ensuring a task is completed and actually completing the task. A person assigned responsibility for completing a task should be given the freedom to harness the capacity of other members of the partnership in completing the task, but ultimately remains responsible for ensuring that it is completed according to deadline.
• Ensure transparency by circulating all information to all partners, taking advantage of the functionality provided by e-mail. This is a principle easily adopted but much more difficult to implement. This is particularly so in South Africa, where withholding information is still erroneously regarded as a strategy for gaining competitive advantage. Similarly, authoritarian management styles tend to encourage a mentality of only providing information on a ‘need to know’ basis, adjusted according to people’s relative position within an organization.
• Agree that only statements made to all partners - either in appropriate meetings or via e-mail - are regarded as valid (with a view to minimizing the influence of rumours and ‘closed door’ decision-making processes).
• Assume collective responsibility for all decisions taken. This will naturally only be possible if all partners adhere to the above two principles.
• Issue invitations to meetings to all members of the partnership. Where a meeting cannot include one or more members, notification about the meeting should still be given, together with an explanation as to why it is not an open meeting.
• Record the outcomes of all key meetings.
• Appoint a good facilitator (either from within or outside of the partnership) to manage key processes.
• Appoint a good manager - accepted by all parties - from within the partnership to manage the partnership and to ensure that all partners adhere to the above principles.

Develop clear, commonly agreed strategies to ask partners to leave or to enable them to withdraw from the partnership. This might be necessary if the partnership comes to deviate too far from a partner’s own objectives or principles. Perhaps more importantly, it may become necessary in the event of non-delivery by one or more partners. Of course, a partnership should be binding enough not to allow withdrawal simply according to whim and to prevent unfair marginalization of partners. Nevertheless, it would similarly be naïve to assume that partnerships will necessarily run smoothly and that there will be no need to dissolve or change the nature of the partnership prior to completion of tasks.

Types of Partnerships
The above group of principles stresses the importance of partnerships, as well as key principles on which to build effective partnerships. Below, however, we list some key types of partnerships that will need to be formed, regardless of the intervention finally chosen. Of course, the specific agencies with which the SABC will work will depend on the nature of the intervention, as the scenarios presented in the following chapter demonstrate. Most importantly, though, partnerships should focus on ensuring that the intervention is part of a coherent, well coordinated national strategy involving relevant government departments, educational institutions, the private sector, and NGOs. Given this, it will be essential to establish partnerships with:

Appropriate government departments both at national and provincial levels. National government departments will be particularly important, as any intervention will need to be integrated with specific government strategies for different areas. National government departments also provide the political support necessary for long-term success. Likewise, their support can secure funding or they might even provide funding for the intervention itself. Provincial departments may be able to make some of the above contributions, but also have access to local networks and systems that can be used to establish contact with learners (for example, schools or adult learning centres).

Educational providers. This constituency is important for various reasons. First, some educational providers have already developed at least some of the basic infrastructure and systems necessary for implementing large-scale educational intervention. Some, such as colleges, community centres, or schools, would also have some of the infrastructure, required at local levels. Second, some have extensive experience in providing educational opportunities in these areas, which can be effectively tapped to ensure the success of the intervention, as well as ensuring that its implementation is cost-effective. Third, educational providers can provide human capacity and expertise in key areas (both education and research).

Community of learning. This constituency would include learners, local champions, corporate clients, communities and community structures, trade unions, and student representative councils. These groups are key contributors to identifying need and potential ways of meetings needs. Further, their endorsement is critical to the success of the intervention. Finally, various of these groups may play a role in curriculum development.

Funders. Funders might include international or local donors, government departments, corporate sponsors, and student bursary providers. Funders will be particularly important given the difficulty that most target learners will have in funding their own education. In addition to providing funds, though, funders can make important critical inputs, and also have access to a network of expertise that might be useful to interventions in this area.

Product and Service Providers (including Educational Resource Developers and Technology Providers). This final group is important because they are important knowledge assets. They can provide services and resources, often very cost-effectively services and are also usually able to customize these services and resources to fit the requirements of the project.

Major networks. There are various networks in South African society that create significant opportunities for ensuring the success of any educational intervention aimed at adults or youths. These networks are important because they can mobilize learners on a large scale and because many have infrastructural resources that can be harnessed by the SABC and its partners. Some suggestions of such social networks and infrastructure include: welfare offices, religious groups and movements, prisons, sports clubs, stokvels, community libraries, and community radio stations. Likewise, many large companies have adult learning centres. Eskom, for example, has 35 centres nationally. Similarly, Nampak, a packaging company, provides in-house adult education and training to its employees. These types of networks should also be harnessed.

Quality Assurance
Internationally, there is growing recognition that one of the most effective ways of ensuring the continual improvement of educational provision is through the establishment of sustainable internal quality assurance mechanisms. Once up and running, these mechanisms can lead to effective self-improving systems within institutions and educational programmes. They can also function as ongoing motivation and professional development for staff. Of course, as with all such mechanisms, there is no guarantee that their implementation will lead to self-improving systems. Nor can such internal mechanisms fulfil all evaluation functions within an institution or programme. Ultimately, success is dependent on the integrity and commitment of the people who implement and participate in quality assurance processes and on their ability to select processes and evaluation strategies appropriate to the context of the institution or programme in which they are working.

Quality assurance focuses on processes and procedures that cannot, in themselves, ensure quality. The standards set, and the notions of quality upon which such standards are based, are crucial. Especially in education, it is dangerous to reduce quality assurance to a mechanistic process, which is not nurtured and challenged by vigorous debate on the aims of education. Although processes and procedures are the focus, these need to be based on a negotiated and dynamic set of values and seen in a particular context. Processes and procedures must be conducive to quality of performance by all involved. They are not controls or judgements external to that performance. They can be viewed as the means by which the members of an institution ensure that it becomes a learning organization. This then prepares the organization for any externally initiated quality evaluation.

As the TELI Report noted, most technology-enhanced learning initiatives have tended to add ‘on their evaluation at the end of the process instead of building it in from the beginning. This ultimately limited the usefulness of the evaluations’. It went on to propose the following guiding principle, which can usefully guide the implementation of any educational intervention emerging from this process: ‘Integrate evaluation and impact assessment into the learning system from the start, and adopt a learning orientation to the use of technology in education and training’.

This chapter has provided a description of the general principles that will have to govern any structured educational intervention in the fields of adult education and youth development. These principles provide a detailed template for the implementation of any such intervention by SABC Education. With this in place, it is now possible to outline four proposed scenarios for such interventions.