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.(SAIDE, 1997)

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’. 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. Indeed, if the school-based educational broadcasting service is to work effectively, it will have to rely heavily on building partnerships with various different types of organizations, and throughout this report we have referred to areas where possible partnerships might effectively be formed. It does, however, suggest a need to draw strongly on local and international lessons in creating new partnerships, such as those articulated in the first four chapters of this report. This, in turn, points the way to identifying crucial ingredients for successful partnership. Amongst others, these would include:

• Building 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.

• Ensuring that educational principles form the foundation of all partnerships. There has long been an apparent tension between the agendas of technology providers and good educators, which has often resulted in failed educational initiatives. Technology providers have tended to focus on ‘getting things done’ and fast rollout of plans, while good educators, realizing the contextual and immensely complicated nature of education, have tended to implement slowly and thoroughly, continually reflecting on the quality of what they have done. An effective way of ensuring that educational principles and issues remain paramount, is for SABC Education to work closely with identified educators who have built up a reputation for providing high quality education. In doing this, it will remain essential to bear in mind that, although principles can quickly be reduced to cliché or jargon, it is necessary to take very seriously the difficulty of implementing idealistic educational principles in practice.

• Understanding the educational potential of broadcasting technologies. This links to the above point. It is essential that partners critically understand the educational potential of radio and television broadcasting technologies, so that partnerships can focus on building on the educational strengths of television and radio. Many educationally sensible ideas make for very poor broadcasting, while many good broadcasting practices are of negligible of even negative educational value. This can only be effectively overcome when all members of a partnership share a common basic understanding of the educational strengths of radio and television, as well as of minimum requirements for interesting broadcasting.

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

• Developing 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.

• Developing 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.

In a keynote address to the SABC Educational Broadcasting Conference in February 1998, Kees Schippers described possible relationships that can ensure effective educational broadcasting on the public broadcaster. This is worth quoting at length:

Is educational television an organisation of and for education or is educational television a department of a general public broadcasting organisation? We have several models in the world:
1. An autonomous educational broadcasting organisation, within the framework of public broadcasting.
2. Educational broadcasting organisations as a department of a general broadcasting organisation, but having a structural link with education.
3. Educational broadcasting organisations as a department of a general broadcasting organisation, but without a structural link with education…

…I prefer the first and second models for the following reasons:
•    These forms of organisations guarantee that educational television programmes have a greater effect, because they are generally closer to the needs of education.
•    Greater effectiveness makes for increased participation and appreciation, while also increasing the positive image and efficiency of educational television.
•    In times of crisis these forms of organisation can usually depend on the support of broadcasting and education authorities.(Schippers, K. 1998)

In chapter one, we have mentioned that a key precursor to this strategic plan was the establishment of a structured relationship between the Department of Education and SABC Education. We also developed a clearer conceptual basis for the relationship between education and broadcasting. This background information leads us to recommend that the relationship between the Department of Education and SABC Education continue to develop along the lines of the second model outlined above. We believe that these enable clearer delineation of responsibilities.

In this report, we have focused on the responsibilities of SABC Education. However, it also becomes clear through this where the responsibilities of the Department of Education lie. For example, we articulated a very narrow range of responsibilities for SABC Education with respect to building access to physical infrastructure (chapter eight). This suggest clearly that primary responsibility for this remains the responsibility of the Department of Education, in partnership with provincial departments and major infrastructure providers such as Telkom and Eskom. This mirrors recommendations made in the TELI Strategic Plan developed by the Department of Education. As a further example, we believe that establishing ongoing channels of communication with provincial departments of education is an activity in which the national Department of Education has a strong role to play. This has already been reflected in the setting up of consultative processes around this report at provincial level, which to date has been driven by the Department.

We also believe that the Department of Education has a crucial role to play in the ongoing conceptualization and strategizing around the school-based service, as it starts to provide broadcasting. The Department has been actively involved in the development of this strategic plan, and maintaining this type of input is crucial to the success of the service. It is, however, worth reinforcing the recommendation made throughout this report that we believe primary responsibility for educational broadcasting itself – and for the day-to-day running of the school service – lies with SABC Education.

Historically, educational radio and television were coordinated by a single educational unit. For a range of valid reasons, this structural arrangement has had to change, with the result that separate educational units have been established for radio and television. While this basic structure remains the most viable, at least in the short to medium term, we believe that various areas where cooperation might take place almost immediately do exist. In consultation with both units, we have generated the following list of cooperation possibilities:

•        Strategic planning.
•       Coordination of marketing campaigns.
•       Using action plans to generate complementary activities (where appropriate) in terms of:

•    Times of broadcast;
•    Themes and content of programmes and series;
•    Learning outcomes of programmes and series;
•    Target audiences;
•    Broad focus areas within blocks of airtime (strands), such as focusing on youth programming between 18:30 and 19:00;
•    Broad educational areas and sectors of intervention, such as Early Childhood Development of Human Resource Development;
•    Broad learning areas, such as science, life skills, or communication; and
•    Broadcasting campaigns.

•        Cross-advertising within programmes.
•       Research, including language research, generic audience research, and field research.
•       Fund-raising.
•       Consultation processes (see below), liaison with the educational community, and development of ongoing working relationships with members of this community.
•       Professional development of teachers in the use of media in the classroom.
•       Interventions in the provision and maintenance of hardware at schools (see chapter eight).
•       Distribution and sale of resources (print, audio, video, and other resources).
•       Participation in the development of print and other non-broadcast resources (see chapter twelve).
•       Development of an educational web site and other online services.

We hope that this report contributes to identifying particular activities that can be begun in many of these areas.

Throughout this report, we have identified many areas in which partnerships may be a possibility. These are summarized briefly below:

• General Partnerships
  •    Ongoing contact with international broadcasters. This could take the form of sharing research information, participating in broadcasting conferences, and maintaining e-mail and facsimile correspondence. The SABC belongs to the European Broadcasters Union (EBU), and should continue this membership for the above reasons. Contact details and information about international broadcasters should be stored and maintained as part of the information base.
  •    Establishing and maintaining good relations with the South African NGO and research sectors to ensure mutual support and recognition of efforts and contributions to education and training in South Africa.
  •    Working with national business and labour initiatives to identify potential partners who can ‘buy in’ and offer human and financial support to SABC Education campaigns.

• Partnerships for Broadcasting
  •    Maintaining relationships with SABC channels to negotiate air time for programmes and ensure on-air promotion for the school service.
  •    Maintaining relationships with other SABC departments, particularly sound and film archives, to evaluate existing programmes for educational usefulness.
  •    Building partnerships with international broadcasters. The SABC should develop its relationships with international broadcasters as described above, not only for the reasons mentioned but also because this can create opportunities for acquiring and selling broadcast materials. It also opens opportunities for co-productions.

• Partnerships to Extend Access to Physical Infrastructure
  •    Monitoring, with content provider partners, progress by corporate and state providers responsible for extending access to physical and resource infrastructure in schools.
  •    Working with the corporate sector and private funding agencies to obtain sponsorship to produce social and educational awareness campaigns focused on resourcing schools or promoting awareness about the roles of the wider community in this campaign.

• Partnerships to Build Professional Development Networks
  •    Supporting and enhancing existing initiatives, such as those of non-governmental organizations, by providing professional development opportunities to teachers and educators. In this way, SABC Education can publicize efforts, and support attempts among NGO sector to become sustainable and accountable.
  •    Liaising with and extend champion networks set up by Spider’s Place, TELI, Curriculum 2005 and others in various districts, to avoid duplication of activities.
  •    Working with professional associations, teacher unions and other teacher representative bodies such as South African Council for Education to support transformation of teachers’ professional identity and access to quality professional development opportunities.
  •    Entering into partnerships with provincial departments of education, district offices, and school governing bodies to ensure that teachers can be formally seconded to SABC Education, and able to undertake action research in classrooms.
  •    Obtaining corporate sponsorship to host a national teachers’ convention on use of audio and video resources in classrooms.
  •    Liaising with teachers’ centres, provincial departments of education, and district offices to set up teacher support groups, and as channels through which to distribute SABC Education support and promotional resources to teachers.
  •    Liaising with and collecting members’ contact details from teacher associations, unions, and representative bodies.
  •    Liaising within the corporation to ensure SABC Tours are used to support professional development networks, and if possible obtain subsidy for this from the corporation.
  •    Liaise with Department of Education and Teaching and Learning Services Unit to include audio and video use as an element on the peer appraisal tool for educators.

• Promotion Partnerships
  •    Building relationships with contact persons at various publications. This is for press release statements and ensuring that articles about the school service appear in a variety of publications.
  •    Establishing relationships with existing electronic information services, to include information on the school service on a regular basis. Examples of such services include Edufax and the Telematics for African Development Consortium.
  •    Negotiating contracts with various publications to include supplements or inserts about the school service.
  •    Obtaining sponsorship from an appropriate corporate partner to fund radio info-bursts to promote awareness of SABC Education.
  •    Liaising with and formalizing relationship with private radio stations such as Radio Metro, 5FM, Youth FM and community radio stations aimed at the youth market, to ensure reach of promotion strategies.
  •    Working with community radio stations, particularly those that have offered support to educational initiatives, to extend reach to SABC Education promotion.
  •    Liaising with and formalizing relationship with petrol companies and large food retail chain stores to ensure that promotional resources can be distributed via petrol stations and stores.
  •    Adopting an advocacy role within corporation to ensure that other SABC departments are supportive of the educational broadcasting initiatives.

• Resource Production Partnerships
  •    Developing a partnership with an organization to implement a print support pilot project for the Foundation Phase numeracy programme. The organization should have a good track record, ability to establish links with Foundation phase educators, an understanding of the context of implementation and difficulties of distribution, and an ability to develop a creative print strategy alongside the production process. The point of the partnership would be to work together to test, monitor, and evaluate mechanisms for providing detailed printed educational support for an identified series.
  •    Contracting an organization to develop an electronic database for the SABC, which has a web interface for users to access parts of this via a web site. The point of this partnership will be establish the database framework, and to allow for changes to the database to be made as it is used. A clear understanding of potential uses of the Internet and web-based interfaces for database will be important for this agreement.
  •    Negotiating sponsorship partnerships to subsidize resources support materials (advertising on printed materials, electronic distribution lists or web site).
  •    Establishing a relationship with the SABC unit focusing on new media. If this department is not used by SABC Education to establish and maintain the database and web site, contact should be maintained to benefit from new initiatives or research from either side.
  •    Brokering new partnerships and strategies for dispatch and sales. One important aspect of this would be liasing with existing sales or dispatch services at the SABC, about the ordering procedure and available resources.
  •    Approaching regional offices to float some stock and administer sales. The feasibility of administering and floating stock in commercial outlets could be investigated. Partnerships with Nu Metro and/or Primedia, to distribute video resources through video hire and sales outlets may be possible. Non-commercial and educational networks, like public libraries, teacher centres, and district offices, could also be approached to see whether or not SABC educational resources could be made available through their services.
  •    Investigating partnerships with other educational cassette producers and/ or distributers, such as The Learning Channel. Relationships with educational resource suppliers like Incredible Connection could also be investigated.

• Research Partnerships
  •    Liaising with and formalizing relationship between higher education institutions to support research activities and internship programmes.
  •    Working with researchers and post-graduate students in higher education institutions and establish channels of mutual support and information sharing. This could include using engineering students in repair and maintenance strategies through to suggesting topics for masters research projects to offering internships to masters of education students.

This report has stressed that the primary educational responsibility of the SABC lies in the broadcasting field. The strategic plans for a school-based educational broadcasting service have, therefore, focused on developing solutions develop solutions for matching broadcasting to timetabling, equipment availability, and human capacity in schools. Another challenge exists, however, that could substantially influence SABC Education’s roles and responsibilities.

The convergence of information and communications technologies suggests that the SABC, as public broadcaster, will need to re-examine its entire educational broadcasting policy(The discussion in this document summarizes a few key issues emerging in a parallel research project being conducted by SAIDE on a strategic position for the SABC in relation to technologies other than radio and television. A full report on this will be released in due course). Emerging research findings, such as a Dutch study on the ideal length of video clips (namely five minutes duration), also point to the need for a re-examination of educational broadcasting policies. There is every likelihood that future educational broadcasts will consist of a growing range of different media, where video and/or audio clips only form part of an integrated multimedia experience (delivered over high-speed computer networks). This approach is already foreshadowed in the range of recommendations in this report, as well as in current SABC practice.

This will have major implications for the types of partnerships that the SABC establishes in the future. Before looking at possible scenarios, it is necessary to provide some background contextual information. First, government policy in various areas reflects a clear decision to proceed with the implementation of plans to build South Africa as an ‘information society’. We will not raise the many complicated social issues that surround this decision and its practical implications. However, it is worth noting that this decision rests on the following future accomplishments:
•    Government is successful in turning the country into an IT-oriented society in order to become globally competitive;
•    Telkom is successful in building the backbone and exchanges needed to transport the information deluge required and delivered by a knowledge-based society;
•    Telkom is successful in installing all the millions of telephone lines to new subscribers as required by its contract with the Government;
•    Telkom installs telephones into all schools in South Africa;
•    Telkom is successful in building its community information technology centres and digital malls;
•    The Post Office successfully makes the jump to the IT age by turning its Post Offices into technology-rich centres;
•    ESKOM installs electricity to all schools in the country, whether by grid-based current or by solar cells (14 000 schools will receive solar cell units);
•    There will be enough ISPs with the required bandwidth to serve the schools through local points of presence (POPs) or through local Telkom telephone calls;(A topological map of the Southern African Internet Access Providers, sponsored by the Internet Service Providers Association, is found at http://www.ispmap.org.za . These ISPs connect to ten service providers in the UK or the USA through pipes of various size. Each ISP has to balance the size of its own pipe against the number of their users and the frequency and duration of each access)
•    The national and provincial education departments, as well as the organized industrial, banking, and commercial sectors, adopt the South African Schoolnet as a full partner by using education to kick-start the transition into a knowledge-based society, similar to the process in Canada;
•    The necessary training is given to teachers who want to add their energies to these processes; and
•    The efforts of the Government, the provinces, private initiatives, and communities to put computers and networks in schools are successful.

In addition to these – often highly idealistic and occasionally problematic – goals, there are other developments worth mentioning. Internationally, it has become almost mandatory for broadcasters and broadcasting channels to have a homepage where programmes, schedules, and other details are made available to the Internet community. This trend is matched in South Africa (many South African broadcasters have sophisticated web sites), and has been reflected in our recommendation to establish a limited, and tightly focused, web presence for SABC Education.

In South Africa, there are, at present, more than 600 000 Internet users in the country. There are many Internet service providers, many of whom offer unlimited surfing (including international access) for as little as R50 per month. The emerging trend is use of the Telkom telephone backbone to offer local access calls (that is, using a local telephone call in contrast with a long-distance call) to the Internet service Provider. The cost of a modem has dropped dramatically in the last year, and good, relatively fast modems that comply to the Telkom license can be bought for under R400.

Examining the SABC website at http://www.sabc.co.za is one way in which to ascertain the extent to which the SABC is responding to these current trends and policy developments. The SABC website is fairly primitive and bare when compared with those of the competitive international broadcasting community. It offers little more than programming schedules (even those seem to be very unimaginative). As a comparison, the BBC website offers far more at (http://ftp.bbc.co.uk/education/teachers/advice.html). Also, in contrast to the SABC website, German web sites are alive with information and things to do or see. One example is that of the German commercial TV channel RTL at http://www.rtl.de. Of course, this comparison needs to take account of the differences in access to Internet-based technology of the people served by the respective public broadcasters, as well as the budgets available to invest in web presences. Nevertheless, there is a strong possibility that the SABC will be required, through different social pressures (some already making themselves felt), to respond to these challenges more substantially. We have, therefore, sketched two scenarios for how this might happen. Each is based on highly idealistic assumptions about the roll-out of infrastructure, but is worth incorporating because of the lessons it contains about partnerships.

Scenario One: Implications for SABC Education Partnerships
Scenario one is a low-level scenario of educational support that can be offered by the SABC. The government, together with Telkom, has set the process in motion to provide the communication backbone and the necessary infrastructure, such as telephones. It is, therefore, assumed that all these plans will bear fruition, and that all schools will be connected to a telephone line. In principle, all schools will have the potential to connect to the World Wide Web. SABC Education, therefore, can confidently plan to use these facilities to enhance its educational brief. However, it needs partnerships to do this.

The lowest level of educational support that a broadcasting site can give at present is that of explicitly providing hyperlinks to evaluated sites of interest. However, if the assumptions above are indeed correct, this kind of support will be very much in demand and will come to be regarded as mandatory to be provided by the SABC. For example, if a South African sport team goes to Moscow, evaluated links to other sites (and there are many of them) that deal with Moscow can be provided, together with a brief description of the contents of each site. The same can be done for educative type of programmes about a city (for example, St Petersburg), or a travelogue about a river (for example, the Volga). Even SABC News programmes can be enhanced in this way, especially when a particular story shows signs of sustaining longer time-interest (for example, the effects of a local war or a currency crisis). An SABC site – and related educational pages – enriched with this information or links to this information will be a very good resource for teachers. In many cases, for instance, in biology, links could be provided to sites that actually cover and enhance the required curriculum of the schools in the various provinces.

The opportunities for this very elementary scenario are legion, and the hyperlinks provided could point to sites already identified – by the Canadian SchoolNet or the European SchoolNets – as suitable for education and information purposes. A small staff component is required to start enhancing the broadcasts in this way. Two or three well-trained Internet knowledgeable people connected to a fast Internet Service Provider are essential, and these staff members must be able to develop the necessary hypertext to interact with the server to make changes and to continuously update the site. Partnerships could be forged with institutions, organisations or private individuals to make this possible. Briefly, this could include:

The South African SchoolNet. There are many very knowledgeable teachers and administrators who would be happy to build subsets of links on to their own school servers or on the free parts of the servers of their Internet Service Providers (in some cases, up to 5 MB per client).
Departments of Education. Other partners in this project could be the Department of Education, as well as provincial departments of education interested in collaborating.
Teacher Unions. Another partnership could be with the various Teacher Unions, which ought to be partners in any technology initiative, especially since training should form an integrated part of the initiative.
Student organizations. Organizations, such as the Congress of South African Students (which is currently running an ambitious technology-enhanced programme for about 40 000 science and mathematics matriculants in the Western Cape) are ideal partners in a project of this kind.(As reported in the Sowetan Education, 6 March 1998)
South African Computer and Computing Societies and other Scientific Societies. There are a few South African Computer or Computing Societies who would almost certainly be willing to participate in a programme of this nature. All of them have educational sub-committees through which the interaction could take place. The same applies to Scientific Societies in general. Examples that come to mind here are the very powerful South African Academy of Science, the South African Chemical Society, the South African Botany Society, and the South African Agricultural Society.
Non governmental organizations (NGOs) and civil organizations. NGOs could provide very valuable input into such a site, since they have access to non-governmental experience and expertise.
Individuals. Many individuals in this country have the necessary expertise to participate in a scheme of this kind. These include very many knowledgeable schoolchildren, students, or members of computer clubs at schools.

There are several recommendations that will provide SABC Education with the necessary steps to offer this level of educational support. First, SABC Education must immediately initiate an Internet project of the type described above to provide links to evaluated sites to educationally enhance SABC broadcast programmes. Second, SABC (and SABC Education) would need to institute a committee focusing on Internet education enhancement to initiate and oversee the project. This committee should be provided with adequate funds to operate and to outsource parts of the project, such as setting up the site and its administration, and providing links for its various sub-parts. The committee might include the following kinds of people, all of whom would need to have developed levels of expertise in using information technologies and in web design:
•    SABC staff members;
•    An NGO representative;
•    A representative from the Department of Education;
•    Representatives from provincial departments of education (on a rotating basis);
•    A representative from a Computing Society;
•    A representative from a Teacher’s Union; and
•    A representative from a software company (on a rotating basis).

Scenario Two: Implications for SABC Education Partnerships
Scenario two focuses on high-level educational support that can be offered by the SABC. It falls into three classes, namely:

1. Delivery of enhancing material by means of a web server, which contains all the databanks such as lesson material for all kinds of subjects, tips for teachers in these subjects (for example, ‘How do I …’), stationary graphical material, and images (for example, historical pictures, dissections, experiments).
2. The delivery of multimedia teaching material (actually complete curriculum-based lectures) through a web site. This will be made possible through the convergence of Web technologies.
3. The delivery of some enhancing material, either through fax or via e-mail.

The educational brief of the SABC seems to fall outside the first two classes, although the corporation can definitely make a very powerful contribution. SABC Education is however able to contribute to the second class, because it is perfectly poised to produce and deliver brief video clips of at most five minutes to enhance other materials included in this material. Since these fall outside the brief of the SABC, no partners are indicated here, and SABC Education ought to position itself to be a partner in any such effort by other institutions or Government.

The third class is a real possibility at this stage, and should be investigated. Technically, it is quite possible to do this via e-mail, which is by far the cheapest option. As an interesting aside, the commercial broadcaster M-Net has announced that it is adding email functionality to its website at http://www.mnet.co.za which allows viewers to surf in and to mark the programmes they want to view. The server will then e-mail them reminders(Die Beeld, Monday July 27, 1998, p17) These types of services have already been described in detail in chapter twelve.

It is recommended, therefore, that:

•    SABC Education add the email options to the brief of the committee (as described above);
•    SABC Education appoint a committee to look at the future, and to advise the corporation on how to position itself strategically so that it can remain competitive in the new millennium. The work currently being generated in a parallel project being run by SAIDE will provide the foundation for this work.

Consultation is essential to the ongoing success of the school-based educational broadcasting service. It serves three primary functions:

1. Consultation is necessary to ensure that the necessary political and social support for the school service. Promotion plays an important part in building audiences, but, if the necessary consultative processes have not been undertaken, these will be made significantly more difficult, while strong resistance to the service might quickly develop in the wrong areas, such as within teacher unions or provincial departments of education. Thus, consultation is essential to ensure that the school service is actually used.
2. Consultation plays a crucial role in getting ideas about the most appropriate nature of the school service, as well as feedback on the success – or otherwise – of the implementation of these ideas. This strategic plan has relied strongly on tightly managed consultative processes to generate the ideas it contains (as appendices ten and eleven demonstrate).
3. Consultation can be an important precursor to establishing more structured partnerships, such as those that have been listed above. It provides a safe and structured environment to gauge the capabilities of potential partners and to identify new partners with whom the SABC has not necessarily worked to date.

The following list provides an indication of the types of organizations and people with whom ongoing consultation will be necessary (the national Department of Education is not mentioned in this list because it has a very specific role to play, already described above):
•    The Council for Education Ministers (CEM);
•    The Heads of Education Departments Committee (HEDCOM);
•    District directors and other provincial officials;
•    Teaching and Learning Development facilitators;
•    People on provincial education committees;
•    Curriculum management committees and other relevant provincial structures;
•    Provincial libraries and media advisors;
•    Teacher unions at national and provincial levels;
•    Professional associations of teachers;
•    School principals;
•    Teacher centre managers;
•    School governing bodies;
•    Individual teachers and parents; and
•    Radio station managers.

Clearly, this list implies that consultation is not simply a process of holding endless workshops. Some regular meetings will, of course, be necessary, for example with CEM, HEDCOM, and the national executives of teacher unions. Furthermore, planning processes such as this will continue to incorporate workshop processes, which allow for effective generation and sharing of ideas. However, it is equally clear that much consultation will take place through the types of processes outlined for promotion (chapter ten) and building professional development networks (chapter nine). We would like to single out again the importance of establishing sustainable channels of communication with broadcast champions wherever they exist. This provides a major opportunity for continuing consultation in affordable and constructive ways.