This planning process has taken, as its point of departure, that the plans developed will support the implementation of a school-based educational broadcasting service. The focus is an important one, as it implies broadcasting that will take place during school hours and will be used by learners and teachers at schools. This priority was established in prior planning processes (most notably the Department of Education’s Educational Broadcasting Plan released in 1996). Nevertheless, there is still a need to develop a clear in-principle understanding of the implications of establishing such a service. In doing this, we will focus on locating a school-based service within a broader broadcasting service that supports educational provision at school level. We will then set out a statement of the assumptions underpinning the phased implementation of a school-based educational broadcasting service, before reflecting on the implications of these for establishing a clear programming focus for the service.

A key step in the process of establishing an in-principle approach for a school-based educational broadcasting service is to explore briefly the relationship between education and broadcasting. This examination provides answers to certain tensions, which are otherwise hard to resolve. These tensions emerge implicitly in the decision-making approach outlined in the TELI Report.

This policy report stresses the importance of examining teaching and learning environments in depth before choosing which technologies to integrate into those environments. Further, it suggests that it is necessary to identify strengths and weaknesses of different technological options and to use this to inform decisions that are taken. The report stresses throughout the danger of allowing technology choice to drive educational decisions about how to integrate technology use into teaching and learning environments, and offers the decision-making framework as a strategy to overcome this problem. The emphasis is on appropriateness of technological choice to context and need as a prerequisite to ensuring that scarce resources are used as effectively as possible.

On the face of it, an educational broadcasting planning process, unless it has been preceded by several other planning exercises, flaunts the most fundamental principle underpinning the above approach: radio and television are chosen as the technologies to be used separate to any detailed analysis of educational need and context of implementation and cost effectiveness. Efforts to assert that such analysis does indeed underpin the technological choices are rendered severely problematic by the context of implementation outlined in chapter one. There are simply too many questions to which there are not satisfactory answers.

At a pragmatic level, for example, the issue of student access to radio and television services offered during school hours raises several difficult questions. The School Register of Needs, for example, indicates that only 43 percent of schools have electricity and only around 38% have telephones(These statistics obviously do not take account of the size of schools. Many schools lacking such basic infrastructure are likely to be small farm schools, catering for very few learners. Thus, the percentage of learners at schools with this basic infrastructure is likely to be far higher than the percentage of schools. Nevertheless, the fact remains that telephone and electricity penetration remains unacceptably low). Further, it is estimated that 82 percent of schools have no media equipment, 72 percent no media collections, 73 percent no learning equipment, and 69 percent no materials(Department of Education; the Human Sciences Research Council). The figures are likely to narrow further when one asks which of the 18 percent of schools with media equipment have radios and televisions, let alone recording equipment. Extrapolating from these figures how many schools are likely to be able to access a school-based educational broadcasting service leaves a clear sense of uncertainty about whether or not radio and television are appropriate technologies to use.

Furthermore, the TELI report identifies basic principles that need to inform the integration of technology use into teaching and learning environments. One such principle is ‘do not introduce technological support unless the users are trained in how to use the resources appropriately’(Department of Education. 1996, p.56). The dearth of adequately trained teachers in South Africa’s schooling system is, however, well documented, a problem only likely to be exacerbated when one explores the use of technologies that are simply not in place in most schools and are unlikely ever to have been put to wide use systemically.

One can continue at length with processes of posing questions, the answers to which raise more problems than they do solutions. Such a strategy, however, can also create an unhealthy inertia, effectively preventing any action. In addition, another reality is not acknowledged when adopting such a line of questioning, and this relates to the existence of broadcasting companies and corporations in South Africa. These companies and corporations disseminate ever-growing numbers of hours of audio and video media every day, which in turn are likely to be accessed by growing numbers of South African people every day. Increases in the numbers of people who have access to radio and television in South Africa are also likely to continue for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, the public broadcaster, the SABC, accounts for the substantial component of total airtime in South African broadcasting, and is bound by its requirement to operate in the ‘public interest’. There is, of course, much debate about what constitutes ‘public interest’, but there are very few people who would disagree that education is an urgent national priority and, as such, very much in the ‘public interest’. Perhaps because of this, the policy environment stresses that the public broadcaster has a responsibility to play a clearly identifiable educational role as part of its operation.

To take account of this reality, the line of questioning in an implementation planning process such as this shifts when viewed from a broadcasting perspective. It is no longer ‘which technologies can most appropriately be used to support educational provision in a given context?’ Answering this question presupposes that radio and television are only two possible options amongst a wide spectrum of technological choices. Instead, the line of questioning takes a different point of departure, which might be articulated as ‘given the nature and responsibilities of the public broadcaster, what educational roles should broadcasting play?’, the answer to which has educational, political, and broadcasting dimensions. This has already been explored in detail in chapter four. From this, the following questions might flow:

1. What total percentage of expenditure on public broadcasting and overall airtime should be allocated to educational broadcasting to enable the public broadcaster to fulfil its mandate effectively?
2. In which areas of education can broadcasting play the most constructive, supportive roles?(The Department of Education’s original Education Broadcasting Plan contains preliminary answers to this question. This plan identified priority areas for educational broadcasting, one of which was a school-based educational broadcasting service. This implementation plan builds on these original choices, rather than seeking to make completely new ones) Which of these areas are of the highest priority?
3. Within each of the areas identified, what specific focuses are most appropriate?
4. What broadcasting strategies, which will draw on the educational strengths of the respective technologies, should be employed to enable radio and television to play an effective role in support of these focus areas?
5. What partnerships should be established to maximize and expand the impact and usefulness of these educational broadcasting strategies?
6. Does the percentage of expenditure allocated to educational broadcasting allow for effective implementation of the roles identified in questions two to five? If not, does the allocation need to be reviewed or do the roles need to be altered to match the budget?

Even cursory examination reveals that this line of questioning is significantly different from the approach sketched out in the TELI Report. The process of finding answers to these questions in South Africa has already progressed significantly, particularly with the release by the Department of Education of its Educational Broadcasting Plan.

The differentiation may seem insignificant on the face of it, but it is substantive. This is because it closes off unnecessary debate about whether or not there is any educational role for television or radio (in this instance, this debate has already been resolved in the affirmative). This changes the focus of planning processes such as the one reflected in this report significantly, preventing wastage of time and energy on debates the outcome of which will not alter the fact that the public broadcaster has an educational mandate that it must fulfil. This planning process is, in many important ways, driven by broadcasting prerogatives and not by educational debates (although it quite obviously must be informed by the latter when one seeks to find answers to questions four and five particularly).

Furthermore, the differentiation clearly locates responsibility for resource allocation on educational broadcasting to the broadcasting sector and not the educational sector. This is because it indicates that responsibility for investing in educational broadcasting lies unequivocally with broadcasters (as is reflected in licence agreements that set conditions to the right to broadcast over public airwaves). As will be demonstrated in later descriptions on partnerships, though, this does not mean that the education sector does not have a vital role to play in shaping the school service itself. Educational input remains a crucial requirement for success of such a service. Furthermore, it does not preclude educational institutions or departments from making additional investments in educational broadcasting should their own planning processes demonstrate a potential value in such investments. It does, however, remove the burden for initial investments in educational broadcasting from education budgets.

In summary, then, the above exposition helps to define clearer focus for the task at hand, which is to plan the best possible educational broadcasting service and not to debate whether or not broadcasting is the most appropriate educational intervention. This, in turn, suggests a need to focus on different questions from those provided in the TELI decision-making framework. It should, however, be stressed that the questions posed in this framework remain a crucial reference point for educational broadcasting planning processes. They help to locate educational broadcasting with broader teaching and learning environments and to identify where the gaps and potential weaknesses of any educational broadcasting service lie. This information can then be used to try fill these gaps and remedy weaknesses through the establishment of appropriate partnerships with educational providers, government departments, educational resource developers, and other key agencies. This basic approach has underpinned the implementation planning process. Information is provided throughout the report on gaps created by and potential weaknesses of a school-based educational broadcasting service. There is also a strong focus on establishing partnerships to deal with these.

We have by now established the importance of educational broadcasting, and reflected in chapter four on educational roles for radio and television. As part of this, we identified certain key questions that would need to underpin this planning process. However, on scrutiny, it becomes clear that certain of the questions have already been answered prior to this planning process. Thus, it has already been established that school education is an area of high priority, sufficiently so to warrant a significant proportion of public educational broadcasting expenditure to be allocated to this area. Consequently, the focus of this planning exercise is to determine what roles a broadcasting service can most usefully play in support of school education.

Similarly, the planning process is also constrained, in the short to medium term, by broad budgetary allocations already made to educational broadcasting generally for the current budget cycle (although there is some possibility of influencing longer term allocation processes). What has not yet been decided, however, is what percentage of this money will be spent on a school-based educational broadcasting service or what amount of airtime ought to be allocated to such a service. In order to find answers to these questions, it is necessary to describe in some detail what general services broadcasting might be able to provide to schools, and then to establish which of these could form part of a school-based educational broadcasting service.

Possible Areas of Focus
Defining a school educational broadcasting service starts with identification of the possible areas of focus for the service itself. In many of the consultative processes employed during the development of this plan, stress was laid on the concept of whole school development as an essential focus for such a service. In acknowledging the importance of this concept, we have chosen to adopt the perspective gaining credence in many circles that whole school development is a concept referring to the integrated development of all aspects of the school, including education of children, professional development of teachers, management, administration, and governance. Thus, whole school development is the umbrella framework into which all school development fits. It is not simply one focus for a school service, but is a common theme that should unite all of the potential elements of a service and that creates linkages between otherwise disparate elements of school development. Whatever elements are finally chosen to make up the service, they will all need to focus on contributing to whole school development.

Using this framework, possible focus areas of a school service might be as follows:

• Curriculum support. A defining characteristic of programming falling under this focus area is that it is designed with learners as a primary target audience. In some cases, programming in this area could be designed to engage or support teachers simultaneously, but not to the exclusion of learners (if it is designed purely for teachers, it moves into the next category). Within this, there are various possible focuses, which might, in some cases, be combined in a single programme or series. The list below is not exhaustive, but reflects several key priorities (many of which are already being tackled in current programming):

•    Supporting the implementation of Curriculum 2005 at the grade levels at which it is being introduced;
•    Supporting old curricula, but using new teaching approaches encapsulated in the transformation to Curriculum 2005;
•    Matriculation support programmes;
•    Supporting Foundation Phase schooling;
•    Building the ability to learn, particularly by developing problem-solving skills, the ability to think critically and skills of enquiry, information literacy, and creativity;
•    Programming on study skills;
•    Providing examples of innovative learning processes and modelling good teaching and learning practices;
•    Providing stimuli to classroom activity;
•    Focusing on areas in the curriculum acknowledged to be difficult to teach;
•    Focusing on mathematics and science;
•    Life skills programming (which might cover issues ranging from managing finances and finding jobs to alcohol and drug abuse); and
•    Offering vocational guidance.
Programmes focusing on these areas could be designed for synchronous and asynchronous use (or, of course, with the potential for both).

• Professional development of teachers. Another area of focus for a school educational broadcasting service would be providing programming aimed at the professional development of teachers. There is clearly an overlap between this area and that of curriculum support, as many curriculum support programmes could have professional development objectives built into them (particularly those that focus on modelling good teaching and learning practices). In addition, though, programmes might be targeted specifically at teachers (Educator Express is an example that already does this). Priority focus areas within this would include:

•    Supporting the move to outcomes-based education and related implementation of Curriculum 2005;
•    Providing examples of innovative learning processes and modelling good teaching and learning practices;
•    Presenting illustrative examples of classroom practice, to initiate peer discussion on appropriate teaching and learning strategies;
•    Providing information on educational policy developments and other educational processes relevant to teachers; and
•    Offering support and advice on targeted areas of relevance to teachers, such as classroom management or multi-cultural classrooms.

• Governance, management, and administration of schools. These areas of the running of schools are vital to schools’ wellbeing, but are often overlooked in favour of the above two areas. The concept of whole school development, however, demands that their importance is acknowledged, and that steps are taken develop the capacity of principals, teachers, learners, and parents to govern, manage, and administer schools effectively. Clearly, a school educational broadcasting service has a role to play in this regard, in the following kinds of ways:

•    Promoting active involvement by parents in the governance of schools;
•    Providing information on educational policy developments and other educational processes relevant to the management, administration, and governance of schools;
•    Presenting illustrative examples of best practice in the management, administration, and governance of schools, both locally and internationally (with a particular focus, in the latter instance, on other Southern African countries);
•    Highlighting common problem areas in school management, administration, and governance; and
•    Demonstrating key management, administrative, and governance functions, with a particular focus on areas of need (for example, classroom management, human resource development, scheduling and timetabling, and resource management).

Possible Broadcasting Categories
Given that a school educational broadcasting service can comprise any element of broadcasting that supports educational provision at school level in any way, there is a number of options that one might explore when designing a complete service. These can, of course, be chosen in different combinations during the school year, with a view to tailoring the service appropriately (for example, taking account of when schools are on vacation). The following are basic categories that might apply (to both radio and television):

• Custom-made programmes broadcast during school hours. In this instance, ‘custom-made’ is intended to refer to programmes made specifically to support educational provision at school level (whether they are made in South Africa or internationally). Programmes broadcast at such times would be intended primarily for use at schools during school hours, whether they were designed for synchronous or asynchronous use. This would, of course, not exclude the possibility that other people might also watch or listen to the programmes, but it sets clear parameters on the primary target audiences.

• Custom-made programmes broadcast outside of school hours. Again, this refers to programmes the primary purpose of which is to support educational provision at school level. The major difference between this and the first category is the time of listening or watching. In this option, programmes are designed primarily for use outside of school hours and off school premises (although this would not negate the possibility that such programmes could be recorded and used during school hours), and are thus primarily developed to form part of a broader school educational broadcasting service. Times outside of school hours would currently include very early mornings, afternoons, and evenings, as well as all day during school vacations.

• Relevant programmes broadcast during or outside of school hours. This refers to programmes that were not initially designed with the intention of supporting educational provision at school level. Possibly, the most obvious genre of programming falling into this category would be documentary. It might, however, also include a range of other programming, such as educative programmes on finances and management not developed specifically for schools but containing relevant information and ideas. Such programmes could either be re-versioned or re-broadcast (see below) for a school service or could be integrated into a school service using broadcast and non-broadcast marketing strategies specifically intended to encourage teachers, learners, or parents to use these programmes to support school education. Another type of programming falling into this category would be those programmes on talk show series that focus on educational topics relevant to schooling. Many of South Africa’s more popular talk shows feature such discussions intermittently.

• Custom-made or relevant inserts included in other programmes. An important element of school educational broadcasting service includes slotting school-related inserts into various programmes, including magazine, current affairs, or news programmes. Such inserts might consciously have been developed as part of a school educational broadcasting service (for example, a special insert on school governing bodies that forms part of a broader campaign). They might, however, simply have been developed as part of the normal production processes of the programmes of which they form part (such as news inserts on Curriculum 2005 or teacher retrenchments). Take 5 curriculum inserts are an example of this kind of programming.

• Short inserts broadcast between programmes at any time. This refers to ‘mini-programmes’ that could be produced as part of broader awareness campaigns. Such inserts, which might typically be between half a minute and two minutes long, would be designed to build general public awareness about important elements of schooling (such as a campaign raising general awareness and support during writing of Matriculation examinations).

In addition to the above categories, it is useful to explore the possible role of continuity presenters, who might be used in two basic ways. The first would be to contribute to general campaigns, in a similar way to the inserts mentioned above. The second would be to use continuity presenters to introduce specific programmes for the school service. This would have the effect of starting to develop a recognizable brand. Importantly, presenters could also be used as a cost-effective alternative to re-versioning broadcast material that was not originally produced specifically to support educational provision at schools. Thus, for example, a presenter could, prior to a documentary broadcast, identify various outcomes for the programme, as well as indicating relevant curriculum areas, and could then refer back to these at the conclusion of the programme.

Possible Programming Genres
There is a range of programming genres that could be used when planning a school educational broadcasting service. In many of the examples provided below, either programmes could be designed specifically as part of such a service or programmes designed with other primary listeners or viewers in mind could incorporate some of the objectives of the service. The following are the main programming genres that might be used:

•    News and current affairs programmes (either those programmes which form part of mainstream broadcasting or programmes specifically designed for a school service);
•    Magazine programmes;
•    Documentaries;
•    Talk shows;
•    Educational series modelled on popular entertainment genres (such as situational comedies, soap operas, quiz shows, or dramas);
•    Classroom-based programmes (where classroom practice is filmed and edited and a voice-over script added);
•    Lecture-based programmes (where the programme follows the format of an educational lecture, with graphics, text, or video clips interspersed with footage of the lecturer – this may possibly be accompanied by telephone ‘phone-ins’ where such programmes are broadcast live).

Possible Strategies for Developing and Acquiring Programming
Various strategies might be employed to develop or acquire programming. These are of great relevance because they have direct implications on costing, and thus will have to form the basis of the broadcast plan. The following are the basic options available, to which a different ‘per-minute’ cost can be allocated:

1. Developing new local material at the SABC – this and the following two options are the most expensive strategies, as they involve production, from scratch, of new materials. Of course, a sliding scale of costs can be applied to production of new materials, as different types of programming incur different costs. Importantly, though, it is essential that the total expenditure of production of new material is not spread too thinly, as this can lead to mediocrity. Rather, it is essential to invest in fewer new productions of the best possible quality, with a view to ensuring that new materials produced can be re-used in cycles of at least three to five years. Thus, production of new materials needs to be supplemented with other strategies for acquiring materials, such as those outlined below. It is, however, important to add that funding is by no means a sufficient guarantee of quality material. One of the key requirements for development of high quality broadcast materials is allowing sufficient lead time for production, while another is ensuring that the engagement between broadcasting and educational prerogatives during production is dynamic, productive, and ongoing, rather than one-sided, static, and sporadic.
2. Commissioning production houses to produce new local material – this is similar to option one, with the exception that the SABC out-sources production to local production houses. This can create cost efficiencies in terms of local production, but needs to be undertaken with due consideration to the implications of out-sourcing and in line with institutional policy on commissioning external productions.
3. Undertaking co-productions with other broadcasters – this option has the potential benefit of being a cheaper way of producing materials. This potential, however, needs to be carefully weighed up, particularly in cases where the SABC will not hold copyright of the final product. Where this occurs, what appears to be a cheaper option may not turn out to be so, particularly if one is planning to re-use materials often rather than just broadcasting them once or twice. Co-productions do, however, incorporate a possible additional benefit of contributing to the professional development of those who participate, particularly where the co-production is done with another broadcaster with extensive experience in educational broadcasting production.
4. Purchasing existing local or international material – this option is cheaper again than the option of co-production. In designing a sustainable school broadcast service, it will be necessary, at least in the short to medium term, to rely quite heavily on purchase of existing materials that can supplement newly produced material in order to ensure that new productions have sufficient funding to ensure production of the highest possible quality.
5. Reversioning existing local or international material – essentially, this strategy involves reworking existing material to serve purposes other than that for which it was originally intended. This can be done in various ways. Voice-overs can be changed to change the focus of the materials, whether it be simply to add a South African flavour to materials or to change the focus of the materials slightly. Material can have ‘tops’ and ‘tails’ added, which are essentially specially produced beginnings and endings that re-contextualize the existing material that appears between them. Finally, sections of existing materials can be incorporated into new programmes, which can reduce the cost of production of a new programme. Each of these options carries different copyright implications, which in turn has an impact on the final cost.
6. Re-using existing material that is already the property of the SABC – clearly, the cheapest option is to re-use material that has already been produced by the SABC and to which it owns the copyright. It is, however, necessary to factor in to this the cost of evaluating existing materials to determine their appropriateness and educational value, as well as to examine any possible anachronisms that may exist and could pose problems for target viewers or listeners (for example, outdated language or dress codes).

Cutting across all of the above, it is essential to stress that another key strategy available to the SABC is to repeat programmes, regardless of which of the above strategies is adopted to develop or acquire materials. Repeats will be necessary to ensure cost efficiency, but can also play an important role in increasing the flexibility of the service.

Possible Non-Broadcast Strategies
As has been stressed at various points in this document, a broadcast strategy focusing on supporting schools cannot simply be developed in a vacuum, but must be seen as part of a bigger, integrated system. Consequently, to succeed, such a service must include a range of ‘non-broadcast’ strategies. These are described in greater detail in the chapters following, but, in brief, are as follows:

•    Motivating teachers, parents, and children to use the broadcast materials;
•    Consulting appropriately to ensure political acceptance of the service;
•    Building professional development networks amongst teachers and school managers to facilitate effective use of the service;
•    Increasing physical infrastructure and hardware in schools to expand access to the broadcast materials;
•    Developing mixed media strategies to support the school educational broadcasting service (in line with broader SABC approaches to the use of technologies other than radio and television to support educational broadcasting); and
•    Evaluating the quality and use of the school service.

As has been suggested above, the key to successful implementation planning of school broadcasting services is to plan programmes as part of an integrated educational service, which cuts across the full spectrum of programming options on the SABC. In doing this, it is essential to keep track of the focuses of different programmes and platforms, with a view to ensuring that, between them, they are covering an appropriate diversity and depth of educational broadcasting. This is something that needs to be conducted on an ongoing basis, as part of day-to-day implementation of the service. We suggest the use of a set of matrices, which track the educational focuses of different types of programming.

This tracking mechanism could be derived primarily from the National Qualifications Framework (NQF), a useful starting point as it breaks the link between learning and formal education. Thus, the NQF provides a flexible framework to track educational broadcasting, allowing it to cover a much broader range of issues, thus focusing on the particular strengths of radio and television. In the case of television, it should be used to track programming from all units of the SABC, these being:
•    Education;
•    News;
•    Current Affairs;
•    Special Documentaries;
•    Wildlife;
•    Magazine;
•    Topsport; and
•    Drama.
In the case of radio, it could be used to track the programmes on individual stations.

An example of a single matrix is provided below. Any single programme could contain ticks in many blocks simultaneously. Filling in the matrix effectively requires at least elementary understanding of the concept of the NQF, which may need to be developed. For this purpose, it is worth consulting the literature of the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA), all of which has been placed on the World Wide Web. This information can be located at: http://www.saqa.org.za.

In addition to this type of tracking, it is also necessary to ensure that certain basic principles and values are integrated into all educational broadcasting. Many of these principles and values are contained in policy on education, which has been described in chapter one. In addition, we believe it is important to make use of the critical cross-field outcomes described by SAQA as outcomes that ought to be integrated into all education and training. The lists provided in the following extract from SAQA literature could be used both as a planning tool and for evaluation purposes.

The following are Critical Outcomes that can successfully be embedded within unit standards:

1. Identify and solve problems in which responses display that responsible decisions using critical and creative thinking have been made.
2. Work effectively with others as a member of a team, group, organisation, community.
3. Organise and manage oneself and one's activities responsibly and effectively.
4. Collect, analyse, organise and critically evaluate information.
5. Communicate effectively using visual, mathematical and/or language skills in the modes of oral and / or written presentation.
6. Use science and technology effectively and critically, showing responsibility towards the environment and health of others.
7. Demonstrate an understanding of the world as a set of related systems by recognising that problem-solving contexts do not exist in isolation.

In order to contribute to the full personal development of each learner and the social and economic development of the society at large, it must be the intention underlying any programme of learning to make an individual aware of the importance of:

1. Reflecting on and exploring a variety of strategies to learn more effectively;
2. Participating as responsible citizens in the life of local, national and global communities;
3. Being culturally and aesthetically sensitive across a range of social contexts;
4. Exploring education and career opportunities, and
5. Developing entrepreneurial opportunities.(SAQA. 1997. SAQA Bulletin, Volume One Number One, May/June 1997. http://www.saqa.org.za/docs/ bulletin/bulletin97-1.html#Critical)

In the preparation for this planning exercise, special attention was given to the concept of establishing a school-based educational broadcasting service. Because of this, it is necessary to explore in more detail what this implies in practice. Consequently, it is necessary to understand the assumptions and constraints underpinning such a service in the context for which it is intended. Developing this understanding has the function of excluding certain of the options outlined above, thus circumscribing and focusing choice. At this point, the context of implementation, outlined in chapter one, becomes crucial, as the practicalities of providing such a service in South Africa must be brought to bear on the choices made. The following are the most important assumptions and principles underpinning the school-based educational broadcasting service. They are drawn from various research and consultative processes undertaken as part of this planning exercise (as documented in the introduction to this report).

Establishing the Limits of the School-based Service
This set of assumptions provides a foundation for all of the other assumptions underpinning the service. The most important underlying assumption is that the school-based educational broadcasting service will be defined in terms of primary place and time of engagement. Thus, the school-based service is defined, first and foremost, by the fact that programmes will be accessed by people on school premises during school hours. This is a crucial assumption, because it sets very clear limits to the focus of the school-based service, as will be seen. Thus, any programmes broadcast during afternoons, evenings, weekends, or school holidays will not form part of the school-based service.

This is not likely to have serious implications for planning or spending on the school service as a whole. For example, expenditure on broadcasting services offered during the morning is likely to remain constant during term-time and school holidays, as is, for example, expenditure on broadcasting services offered on weekends. This can be seen in practice in the financial modelling presented in chapter six. The distinction is, however, important conceptually. For example, the types of programmes broadcast during school holidays will need to be significantly different from those broadcast during term-time, as the target audiences will differ. Reasons for this will emerge as we describe the focus of the service below.

A second related assumption is that the extent of the school-based educational broadcasting service will be constrained by limitations of budget and time available on radio and television stations. It is futile to plan a service without taking account of the basic practical limitations of broadcasting time and budget. Of course, planning processes should not be overly constrained by these factors, as it may be possible to negotiate additional airtime or secure larger budgets if necessary. Thus, while planning within the limitations of these constraints, it is also important to point to possible areas for expansion or growth where these exist so that these constraints do not become unnecessary impediments to the long-term establishment of a sustainable and relevant school-based service.

Target Viewers and Listeners
The basic assumptions mentioned above provide clear direction to the focus of the service itself. Possibly most importantly, delineating the service in terms of location and time of engagements suggests clearly that programming in the school-based educational broadcasting service will need to target teachers and learners simultaneously. Consultation undertaken as part of this research process has revealed unequivocally that programming aimed exclusively at teachers is not appropriate during school hours. This is because the school day in South Africa is already reasonably short, and it would be unacceptable to plan broadcasting that will take teachers away from their primary teaching responsibilities during this time. This, of course, does not mean that programming designed exclusively for teachers should not exist at all. For example, Educator’s Express, a television programme aimed at teachers, already fulfils an important role within the schooling system. Importantly, though, it is not broadcast during school hours, but on weekends. In recognition of the importance of broadcasting strategies that focus on the professional development of educators, we have included a special exploration of possible roles for broadcasting in this area in chapter nine.

Furthermore, a school-based service should not broadcast programmes that are aimed exclusively at learners. This is particularly important in South Africa, where the daily patterns of school life have, in so many schools, been severely disrupted. A school-based service needs to contribute to restoring the normal patterns of school life by ensuring that programming does not either alienate teachers or allow them to abdicate responsibility for classroom activity by using radio or television as a ‘babysitter’. Thus, an important principle underlying the school-based service is that programming will have to be designed to engage and not to alienate or marginalize teachers. This has important implications for the design and development of programmes and series, adding a level of complexity to the conceptualization and design process.

Leading from the above, however, is an important additional assumption raised by the realities of providing a school-based service in South Africa. It will be necessary to assume that the ability of teachers to integrate programmes into day-to-day classroom activities will, at least initially, be very low. This should not be interpreted to suggest that no teachers possess the skills or abilities to integrate television and radio programmes effectively into lessons. Rather, it simply indicates that, given the legacy of underqualified teachers, problems in provision of teacher education, and historical lack of access to radio and televisions in disadvantaged communities, one cannot assume that the average South African teacher has developed these skills and abilities. Furthermore, the skewed nature of apartheid development suggests that, where teachers do possess these skills, they are most likely to be working in better resourced schools within the more affluent of South Africa’s communities.

This assumption has important implications for the way in which programmes will have to be designed. Clearly, it will mean that programmes will need to be designed for use in different ways, allowing for use at different levels according to the skill levels of the teachers using the programmes. This will have to be an important principle underpinning the design and development of programming. In addition, though, another essential principle is that the service will need to be accompanied by strong professional development for teachers. This professional development will need to include: broadcasting specifically targeted at teachers that forms part of a broader school service; provision in advance of detailed information about programmes; identified non-broadcast interventions designed to support the professional development of teachers in the use of broadcast materials in the classroom; and empowerment of teachers to participate in production processes. The service as a whole should also try to encourage interaction amongst teachers, both within individual schools and across clusters of schools. Specific professional development strategies for teachers are described in detail in chapter nine.

Finally, with respect to target viewers and listeners, an important assumption is that the process of establishing listening and viewing habits will be lengthy. It is unreasonable to assume that a school-based educational broadcasting service can achieve significant penetration in a very short period. Its success will depend on slowly changing long established patterns, even relying, in some instances, on school timetables changing to take account of broadcasting times. Similarly, as has been pointed out in chapter one, there are still significant limitations to availability of the physical infrastructure required to access the service in many schools. As is discussed in more detail below, the implementation of this service is based, to a certain extent, on a logic that the existence of the service will motivate many schools to acquire the necessary equipment to access the service. This process is likely to take some time, and only to start yielding benefits once the service is reasonably well established. Consequently, this planning exercise has been developed according to the assumption that the service will exist for at least the next two years, starting in January 1999. It will, however, be accompanied by a detailed quality assurance and evaluation process, which is described in detail in chapter fourteen.

Focus of the Service
Identifying the target listeners or viewers sets important limits to the focus of the school-based educational broadcasting service. As has been suggested, programming will have to be designed and developed on the assumption that teachers and learners will engage with it simultaneously. In terms of the areas identified in the description of the school service, therefore, the clear implication is that the service will need to focus primarily on providing curriculum support, as it has been described above. This implies that there will be no programming dedicated exclusively to supporting the professional development of teachers or to the governance, management, and administration of schools. This does not mean that such programming is not important or that it should not form part of a broader school service. Rather, it simply implies that it is an inappropriate focus for broadcasting designed for use on school premises during school hours. Furthermore, this principle should not be taken to mean that the programming developed for a school-based service should not support the professional development of teachers. Indeed, given the dual nature of the target audience, it is essential that professional development support for teachers should be a theme running through all programming, wherever possible. This could take the form of modelling good teaching and learning practice, ensuring that teachers retain final responsibility for coordinating lesson activities around broadcasts, or addressing teachers separately during the broadcast about particular aspects that may be of interest to them in a given programme. This support will need to be linked to the broader professional development strategy for teachers, which is outlined in chapter nine. Importantly, in weaving professional development support through the programming, it will be necessary to ensure that the service assists teachers to manage the implementation of Curriculum 2005.

Although curriculum support will constitute the primary focus of the school-based service, however, the reality that it is constrained by limitations of airtime and budget mean that it will not be possible for the service to provide a systematic course or to cover each topic in the curriculum. Notions of providing broadcasting services that provide broad curriculum support in all areas are often based on outdated approaches to school education, which attempt to map it according to the following type of matrix:

This approach to conceptualizing school-based broadcasting reflects very narrow understandings of curriculum, very different from those being introduced through Curriculum 2005 and the National Qualifications Framework. Furthermore, simple logic, corroborated by experience of school services around the world, suggests that this is impossible, because the amount of airtime required to achieve this is well outside the limits of any public broadcaster. In addition, though, such an approach to educational broadcasting takes no account of the strengths of radio and television as articulated above. These have indicated clearly that using broadcasting to offer systematic courses is highly problematic educationally.

Rather, then, the school-based service will have to focus on providing different types of support. In particular, programmes will need to support key educational insights, concepts, and approaches. Given the context of transformation in South African schooling, this support should work to support the implementation of a new school curriculum. In other words, producers could use topics emerging from the new curriculum as an organizing principle for programmes, a principle that could also guide purchase and re-versioning of existing programming. These could then be used to build key educational insights, concepts, and approaches, which might include: building critical thinking, problem solving, and research skills; encouraging lifelong learning and attitudes of enquiry; or providing examples of innovative learning processes. The principles or methodology of each learning area, presented using illustrative case studies, should constitute the primary focus of programmes. In this way, case studies chosen from the content of different curriculum areas should illustrate different approaches to thinking (such as historical or scientific).

Repetition and depth within the school-based service will then arise by demonstrating different educational strategies for approaching problems and by continually modelling good teaching and learning practices in different ways. This approach also has the additional advantage of building possibilities for cross-curricular activities into programmes. This, in turn, will start to ensure that programmes can be used in different ways across a cluster of grades, rather than leading to programmes that are so specific in focus that they create niche audiences that are too small to be sustainable.

An additional principle emerging for design and development of programmes is that references, language, and images in the service must reflect the reality faced by most teachers and 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 teachers that the programmes bear no relation to the realities they face, both in the classroom and in everyday life. 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 teachers and school learners. A key component to ensuring this is to open access to the production processes, for example by involving teachers 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.

An important final principle emerges from the above discussion. While it has been alluded to implicitly, it is worth stating explicitly. This is that the service must be complementary to, and support, the goals, values, and principles of the education departments, both national and provincial. 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 the service. In addition, the planning process has included some preliminary dialogue with provincial departmental representatives, and this will need to continue as the plan is implemented.

Taking Account of the Realities of School Life
Given that the school-based service is defined, in part, by the fact that the primary location of engagement will be the school, it will be necessary for the design and development of programming to take into account the realities of school life. This links first to the principle articulated above that references, language, and images in the service must reflect realities faced by most teachers and learners, while incorporating the diversity of South African schools. In addition, however, there are various logistical principles that need to be taken into account. Consequently, programming will need to be influenced by the constraints of school timetables (particularly with regard to length of lessons). This has implications for the average length of radio and television programmes broadcast as part of the school-based service, as the average lesson lasts only thirty minutes. Although there are possibilities for designing some programmes for use in double lessons, it will clearly be unrealistic to design most in this way. Thus, many programmes will have to be no more than fifteen minutes to allow teachers to prepare the class, introduce the programme, and run follow-up activities once it is completed. Providing teachers assistance with managing this effectively will also need to form part of the above-mentioned professional development strategies.

Possibly the most important reality, described in chapter one, is that the majority of schools lack the necessary physical infrastructure to access the service at all. This is clearly not a problem that can be solved adequately in the short or even medium term. Consequently, the service will have to lobby for, and be accompanied by, concerted efforts to extend access to physical infrastructure (including electricity, televisions and radios, and recording equipment). These efforts will need to take account of issues of storage, maintenance, and security. They will also need to be integrally related to processes of restoring equity in physical infrastructure provision at schools, rather than simply widening the gap between well resourced and poorly resourced schools. In addition, television services will have to be based on an assumption that access to VCRs will increase significantly over the next two to three years, particularly to allow for increasing asynchronous use of television programmes (the benefits of asynchronous use are described above). Chapter eight describes a strategy for the school-based service to participate in efforts to extend access to the physical infrastructure needed to receive the service.

These efforts notwithstanding, the school-based service will need to take account of the realities of limited access to physical infrastructure. Thus, programmes will need to be designed for use in different ways. This has been partially discussed above. In addition, though, the conceptualization and design of programmes will have to be based on an assumption that programmes will be watched as they are broadcast, but will also need to be designed to allow for more flexible use in recorded format. It is simply not going to be possible to assume the existence of recording equipment to allow for asynchronous use of materials. Nevertheless, the service should work to encourage the purchase of recording equipment as outlined above, and seek to ensure that materials are designed in a way that allows for effective asynchronous use.

Because of limited access to the necessary equipment, it can also not be assumed that many different groups within a school will be able to watch or listen to programmes at the same time. Consequently, because assumptions cannot be made about the existence of recording equipment, programmes will need to be repeated to allow realistically sized groups to watch or listen. This will be particularly important because many of the schools that do have radios or televisions are not likely to have more than one of each. The planning of a service will need to assume that only one television or radio is available for use within any given school. In addition, given that many schools will not have the necessary physical infrastructure, programmes will need to be re-broadcast outside school hours to allow for home-based viewing or listening (where the parent might then be encouraged to provide support to learners watching or listening to programmes).

All of the above points clearly to the logistical problems that schools are likely to face in accessing the school-based educational broadcasting service. If it is to have any chance of success, the service will need to provide ample advance notice to schools and teachers about which programmes are being broadcast when, to allow maximum time to make the necessary logistical arrangements. Consequently, the school-based service will need to be accompanied by an effective, information-rich promotion strategy. This strategy is outlined in chapter ten.

Partnerships in the Service
A service such as the one described above 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 working together effectively. This need not mean that these agencies should change the nature of what they are doing, but simply that they could re-focus it slightly so that it works in support of the implementation of the school-based service. Consequently, the service should attempt to function as a focal point, bringing together various existing initiatives. In this respect, the national Department of Education will have an important coordinating role to play. The nature of the relationship between the Department of Education and SABC and of other possible partnerships is described in chapter thirteen.

The Case of Radio

As part of this research, we have conducted a situational analysis of radio in South Africa. This research, supplemented with consultation with key people in the area, has indicated clearly that radio stations are unlikely in the short to medium term to conduct any school broadcasting that is both intended for use in classrooms and broadcast during school hours. Given the nature of radio broadcasting, and particularly the primacy of language, it appears not to make sense to attempt to broadcast educational radio programmes supporting school education on national stations. As the situational analysis shows, regional stations are unlikely to make available time for school broadcasting during the school morning, both because they are required to attain financial sustainability and because the issues outlined above show the tremendous challenges and difficulties in trying to make school-based broadcasting work effectively. These challenges are significantly increased if one is attempting to replicate services on eleven regional stations, given the need to take account of local realities and different languages, as well as the need for coordination amongst eleven station managers.

For this reason, the discussion below has been developed mostly on the basis of consultation held around the possibilities of using television in classrooms. However, we have tried to conceptualize the basic principles and assumptions above in general terms as far as possible, and believe that they apply predominantly to both television and radio. We will also consider briefly a possible role for radio in school-based broadcasting.

The above discussion has sought to define a school-based educational broadcasting service as part of a broader school educational broadcasting support service. We have argued that it is simply not possible to conceptualize and plan a school-based service without reference to and an understanding of the overall service. The discussion has then identified various of the principles and assumptions that would underpin a school-based educational broadcasting service provided in South Africa. Using this – and the background information provided in chapters one to four – we will now describe a possible focus for the school-based service.

The principles and assumptions underpinning school-based educational broadcasting articulated above have suggested that there are several conceptual and logistical difficulties and challenges in trying to provide synchronous broadcasts for use in classrooms during school hours. For this reason, we recommend that the initial focus of school-based broadcasting services be limited to Foundation Phase education. Before articulating the reasons for this, it is worth exploring briefly what is meant by Foundation Phase education.

Foundation Phase Education Described
The National Qualifications Framework articulates to basic pathways towards a General Education and Training Certificate, which constitutes the first level within the Framework. One involves four levels of adult basic education and training, while the other involves the following four phases:
•    Pre-School;
•    Foundation Phase;
•    Intermediary Phase; and
•    Senior Phase.
According to national policy, the Foundation Phase comprises the equivalent of the four years from Reception Year to Grade Three. The three grades reflect the first three years of schooling, but the Reception Year:

Should not be understood as an institutional year of instruction in the primary school at this stage. The current context requires indirect preparation for the Reception Year to be introduced in the future as the first introductory year of an integrated four-year Foundation Phase programme.(Department of Education. 1996, p.17)

National policy also provides the following description for Early Childhood Development (ECD):

An umbrella term which applies to the processes by which children from birth to at least 9 years grow and thrive, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, morally and socially.(Department of Education. 1996, p.14)

Thus, Foundation Phase education comprises one element of early childhood development, namely the first four years of compulsory schooling. It has been broken into three learning programmes, where a learning programme is:

The vehicle through which the curriculum is implemented at various learning sites such as schools. They are the sets of learning activities which the learner will be involved in working towards the achievement of one or more specific outcomes.(Department of Education. 1996, p.14)

The learning programmes are as follows:(The descriptions provided on learning programmes are taken from: Department of Education. (1997). Foundation Phase (Grades R to 3) Policy document. pp. 21-23.)

• Literacy
  Initially ‘literacy’ was seen as a cognitive process that enables reading, writing, and numeracy. With respect to South African education, the use of the term ‘literacy’ has expanded to include several kinds of literacies across all Learning Areas.(In developing the NQF, the South African Qualifications Authority identified eight learning areas: Language, Literacy, and Communication; Mathematical Literacy, Mathematics, and Mathematical Sciences; Life Orientation; Human and Social Sciences; Technology; Natural Sciences; Arts and Culture; and Economics and Management Sciences. These should not be confused with learning programmes. The point, however, is that within each learning area, sets of outcomes are articulated, as are range statements, which sketch out the scope, depth, and parameters of achievement for each outcome at different levels, including the Foundation Phase level. When constructing the three learning programmes, therefore, Foundation Phase educators need to incorporate the outcomes for each of the learning areas) ‘Literacies’ stress the issue of access to the world and to knowledge through development of multiple capacities within all of us to make sense of our worlds through whatever means we have, not only texts and books. Examples of kinds of literacies include:
  •    Language literacy – The interim policy document for ECD affirms that the over-arching goal of language development is affective communication. The focus will be on the improvement of learners’ listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills.
  •    Cultural literacy – Cultural, social, and ideological values that shape our reading of texts.
  •    Critical literacy – The ability to respond critically to the intentions, content, and possible effects of messages and texts on the reader.
  •    Visual literacy – The interpretation of images, signs, pictures, and non-verbal (body language, etc.)
  •    Media literacy – The reading of, for example, television and film as cultural messages.
  •    Numerical literacy – The ability to use and interpret numbers.
  •    Computer literacy – The ability to use and access information from computers.

This learning programme emphasizes that language is not an end in itself, but a means to act in the world in order to establish relationships, to interact with others, to integrate new knowledge into existing knowledge, and to obtain and convey ideas and information.

An integrated approach to the implementation of the learning programme in the classroom will ensure that literacy is also developed in the learning programmes for numeracy and life skills.

• Numeracy
  This learning programme statement:
  •    nurtures continued perceptual, sensory, and motor development;
  •    uses the learner’s own innate, intuitive, and experientally acquired knowledge and ability in number and space as a springboard into continued learning;
  •    ensures the enjoyment of the experiences provided;
  •    engenders confidence in the young learner’s own mathematical abilities;
  •    encourages learners to develop their own approaches to working with numbers;
  •    consolidates in learners a necessary efficiency and fluency in the basic operations in numbers;
  •    enables learners to understand and appreciate relationships, logic, and pattern in number and space;
  •    builds on the learner’s experience of space, time, and motion in their everyday lives in order to assist in structuring and interpreting it through concrete and diagrammatic representation, estimation, and measurement;
  •    develops the ability to communicate mathematically, works cooperatively towards solving problems, and uses correct mathematical terminology and symbols;
  •    enables the young learner to extend from their everyday usage of money into an understanding of simple economic principles and so engender entrepreneurial skills.

• Life Skills
  This learning programme deals with the development of a range of life skills to empower learners:
  •    to develop their full personal potential physically, effectively, socially, cognitively, and normatively;
  •    to participate effectively within their environment and develop scientific and technological process skills;
  •    to be an empowered citizen and to prepare them for the world of work;
  •    to be a creative learner.

Why Focus on the Foundation Phase?
The decision to recommend a focus on Foundation Phase education has been influenced by various factors. It is based first on an understanding that, given limitations of airtime and budget, there is a need to narrow focus. It will simply not be possible to provide any useful broadcasting support across all four levels leading to the General Education Certificate and to school education leading to the Further Education Certificate. Given this, Foundation Phase appears to be the most appropriate area on which to focus for the following reasons:

1. Much of the ongoing activity around the implementation of Curriculum 2005 is taking place in the Foundation Phase area. This makes the Foundation Phase an ideal area for broadcast support, particularly given the uncertainty surrounding the implementation of new curricula. This is particularly important considering the stress laid in the new curriculum on resource-based learning. If, as has been recommended above, the broadcasting is conceptualized and designed explicitly to support teachers – and not to alienate them – it could provide a valuable additional resource base for teachers working in this area. In this regard, a focus on developing video and audio materials that can either be recorded or purchased by schools – hence building up the resource base of schools – is essential(This report has noted the lack of physical infrastructure in many South African schools. It has, however, also suggested that a school broadcasting service can function as a catalyst for developing the resource base throughout the South African education system. It also notes anecdotal evidence that many schools traditionally considered to be ‘underprivileged’ do, in fact, have the ability to mobilize limited resources. A limiting factor is often lack of information about how to purchase or use resources effectively. Hence, this observation is premised on an understanding that there is, in fact, some possibility to build resource bases in disadvantaged schools. Support strategies for this are developed in detail in chapter eight). This suggests that care will need to be taken that programmes developed to support Foundation Phase education are designed in such a way that they can be used for more than one or two years by schools.

2. A key reason for suggesting focus on Foundation Phase education is that there is far greater flexibility in terms of timetables than there are in other areas of schooling. There are two reasons for this. First, the new curriculum framework articulates only three learning programmes. This means that the school day is not segmented into many parts, as it tends to be in other areas of schooling. Second, teachers at this level tend to be attached to student cohorts and not to curriculum areas. Because of this, teachers have much more freedom to change timetables and plan activities for an entire morning rather than for half an hour or an hour. This lends itself much more effectively to integrating broadcasting resources into classes.

3. Linked to the above, a further advantage of developing broadcasting for the Foundation Phase relates to the nature of the integrated curriculum. Because of this, programmes developed for integrated curricula can be used by more learners and teachers in more ways, according to their needs. This allows for creation of larger target audiences, which makes sense both from a broadcasting and financial perspective.

4. The notion of integrated curriculum also provides a further benefit. Good educational practice points to the importance of making links between different curriculum areas when teaching. From a broadcasting perspective, this can be more easily managed when developing support resources for an integrated curriculum than where the curriculum has been compartmentalized. Thus, although broadcasting support for any level of school education should look to make cross-curriculum links, this is likely to be easiest at the level where the curriculum has been most rigorously conceptualized as integrated.

5. Because teachers at Foundation Phase level plan for activities across much longer times, the need for variety within the class becomes much more immediate than it does at other levels. Again, this provides additional rationale for developing audio and video resources at this level. Over time, these will start to increase the range of options available to teachers, supporting them in the process of constructing lessons that, in effect, span entire mornings.

6. Both internationally and locally, broadcasting has already invested significant resource in developing programmes that can effectively be used to support Foundation Phase education, particularly with regard to television(As has been pointed out by SABC Educational Radio, the nature of radio limits the possibilities of purchasing programmes for immediate use or for re-versioning. Radio programmes are generally produced for local circumstances, and are thus not transportable. Acquisition is only really a possibility for locally produced programmes, and even then only really when the purchasing station is involved in some way in the production). This provides a financial rationale for broadcasting at this level, as the costs of developing a school-based service can be kept to a minimum.

7. Finally, a rationale for broadcasting at the Foundation Phase is that there are many more learners at the primary school level than at secondary level. For example, 70% of the 27 864 schools in South Africa are primary schools. In addition to this, programmes designed for the Foundation Phase could also be used at Early Childhood Development Centres, particularly those engaged in Reception Year. Foundation Phase educational broadcasting opens up good possibilities for parental involvement, allowing additional opportunities for resources to be used effectively where schools lack the necessary infrastructure to access television and radio broadcasts.

The above rationale is, of course, of no relevance if there are not meaningful educational roles for using broadcasting resources at the Foundation Phase. The following section outlines some possible roles for educational television at this level, indicating that there is tremendous potential for using video resources in Foundation Phase classrooms. At Foundation Phase television could be used to good effect in helping to achieve the following goals (this is a partial list only):

•    Develop language, vocabulary, and listening skills;
•    Stimulate the imagination by encouraging children to create mental pictures;
•    Create movements for control, coordination, and body awareness;
•    Encourage creativity and play;
•    Stimulate curiosity about the world and local environments;
•    Encourage and reinforce pattern recognition for both literacy and numeracy; and
•    Stimulate talking, reading, and writing activities.

These aims are not specific, or intrinsic, to television, but rather are selections from the Learning Programme aims.

Television broadcasts can either support or undermine these aims, making careful design essential. For example, some television broadcasts encourage passive viewing, not creativity and play. Similarly, unless carefully designed, television can ‘over-provide’ images, inhibiting imagination by preventing children from creating their own mental pictures. Both of these ‘weaknesses’ are, again, not intrinsic to the technology, but rather a function of how programmes are designed.

This leads one to consider the crucial question: ‘What could good Foundation Phase television broadcasts look like?’ This question will be answered by examining some potential types of programming. The different types should not be seen to be mutually exclusive, ‘stand-alone’ programmes, but should rather be seen as possible components of a broadcast service, which may be compiled around a common theme. Many of the types of programmes described below have already been created by the SABC or other educational broadcasters. For example, much programming already focusing on early childhood development, such as Dumani, Open Sesame, and TV Town, can be used for school-based Foundation Phase broadcasting. Existing programmes could be re-versioned, dubbed into several languages, or repeated.

1 Story Time
Television broadcasts can be used as a means of bringing literature into the classroom. Stories can be read or told to encourage listening, language, and vocabulary development. The following are examples of possible ‘story-time’ options that could be used in television broadcasts:

•    A professional storyteller can enact a story. In this option, the story is told rather than read. Given South Africa’s rich oral history tradition, this is an exciting option to exploit. Programmes of stories in a variety of South African languages and from various cultural traditions could have educational and commercial value as video resources.(Gcina Mhlope currently presents such a broadcast for general audience viewing on SABC)
•    A presenter can read a story from a book, showing both the reader and the book. This is particularly effective for illustrated books.(Some Dumani story-time inserts use this technique)
•    A story can be read or told as ‘voice-over’, while visuals cut to different footage. This kind of broadcast needs to be carefully handled as it can impose images on viewers rather than developing imagination. Nevertheless, a selection of images and suitable music can accompany the voice-over of a story to good effect.(This technique was used in a video entitled Poetry for the People, which was produced in about 1985. Footage from political protests accompanied the reading of struggle poetry. For some poems, documents, photographs, pictures, and landscapes were filmed)

It should be made clear that these ‘story time’ options are markedly different from dramatizing or animating a story, where the story or tale becomes the basis for a plot to be dramatized. The latter can tend to inhibit, rather than develop, the imagination.

2 Rhythm and Movement
Television broadcasts can support the development of body control, coordination, and awareness. This can be done in various ways:

•    A television presentercan(A presenter could be human, an animated character, or a puppet - provided body parts are clearly identifiable) lead viewers in series of movements, frequently to accompanying music. Programmes would need to provide time to cue teachers to get children ready to participate. In addition, slow and deliberate initial movements with plenty of repetition would be necessary. This kind of programme should deliberately seek to involve the teacher and not ignore or replace him/her (although this might include giving teachers some time to prepare for a next activity). The aim may be to initiate a movement activity, which teachers continue once the programme is finished. If this is not the aim, then enough time should be given for this to be a meaningful movement activity and it should be followed by a calming or relaxation activity to close.(Codi and Dub on Tube present a short aerobics insert. Without sufficient time to get a class cued to participate and without a clear indication of the exact movement, this would not be easily transportable into a classroom. The session would also need to be longer to be meaningful)
•    Music, songs, and rhymes that have accompanying movement can be introduced. This will be discussed in more detail when music and song are described.
•    Rhythm and movement are aspects that could cut across all activities.

3 Music and Song
It has already been mentioned that music can accompany other activities such as story-telling or movement. In addition to this, music can form the focus of programmes, in its own right. This has the advantage of not being language-specific. Listening to music, and differentiating different types of sound, are important skills to develop. For example, a programme could be produced with an instrumental piece of music that signals different types of instruments used. Exploration and exposure to different types of music and musical instruments from Africa and other continents could cut across all activities. Children could also be encouraged to make music or to sing. Learning songs, if the association with new words is made explicit, can be used to improve vocabulary in home languages. New words can be introduced either through the teacher’s pre-broadcast activities or during the broadcast. If a song is not in the home language of the viewer, but is intended to support development of vocabulary, translation or clear associations are important.

Learning songs can assist in memory development. If words for songs are written on screen, this could assist in developing word recognition (reading). For this to be effective, a song would need to be repeated frequently. Programmes need not only be designed for children to sing along; a variation would be to teach a song and then replay the melody to allow the class to sing the song. In these ways, broadcasts can introduce instruments and music that are not usually available in the classroom.

4 Rhymes, Poems, and Proverbs
As with songs, learning rhymes, poems, and proverbs through repetition can contribute to language and vocabulary development, if associations, translations, or explanations for new words are given. There would be great merit in developing educational resources using the rich oral and written traditions of various South African languages. A programme could be built around a particular proverb, saying, or poem, with sections of the broadcast handling the issue raised in the poem or proverb in different ways. For example, one section could explain the origin of the literature, another may be a drama snippet of a person enacting the dilemma the piece poses, and another could be a song. Alternately, short broadcast snippets focusing on rhymes, poems and proverbs could be produced in different languages. Snippets on, for example, Xhosa oral and written tradition could then be inserted into and repeated throughout a Xhosa transmission.

5 Making Items
Broadcasts can be produced that show how to make a specific product. Where possible, the concept should be illustrated - giving children opportunity to express themselves and adapt the ideas - rather than being a prescriptive detailed ‘recipe’. Special care should be taken to ensure that the need for specialized equipment is kept to a minimum; such programmes should focus rather on improvised techniques for this kind of activity. This type of programming would primarily serve as a stimulus to teachers, as they would need to initiate and supervise such tasks. Many exciting ideas for designing, making and evaluating products form part of the new design and technology curriculum, and could be used as a source of ideas for extending such programming.

Besides focusing on how to make something – be it a puppet, poster, toy, or musical instrument - ideas on how to make or acquire materials or components parts should also be given. For example, making or mixing coloured paint, paper maché, or glue should also be illustrated. Improvised ideas for materials and equipment would be an important sub-theme, and sensitivity to material conditions in South African schools would be essential in this regard. Options should be given for different types of material, and, where possible, recycled products should be used. If such a programme is broadcast on a weekly basis, the final part of each programme should include some explanation of what will be needed for the next episode (and this information could also be contained in publicity information). Another idea might be to design a preview programme specifically for teachers, which could be transmitted as part of professional development broadcasting aimed at teachers on weekends (see chapter nine). The teachers’ preview could be presented in English, while the actual broadcast for learners and teachers during the week could be repeated in various languages.

6 Stimulating Action
Programmes can be designed to stimulate classroom activity. These are particularly effective when building on the ability of television to show viewers things they would not usually see(Some aspect of Dumani could be used to encourage activity. In one episode, the Dumani cast travelled to all the South African provinces and drew a map of the country, including some characteristics about each area. In another section in the same episode, a treasure map was followed introducing some numeracy concepts). Viewers may learn from the broadcast, and then be able to apply what they have learnt in a task. The teacher’s role in encouraging action becomes crucial in this regard. While a few concepts may be introduced during the broadcast, reinforcement and additional interaction would only result from follow-up activity. Again, preview broadcasts for teachers and the provision of advance information would be essential.

7 Using Continuity Footage to Reinforce Symbolic and Numeric Literacy
The continuity footage between inserts in a magazine-type programme or between programmes can be used to reinforce symbols that are being introduced to Foundation Phase learners. At a basic level, alphabet characters and numbers can be presented with accompanying sounds(Open Sesame uses these kinds of continuity inserts). At a more sophisticated level, whole words (possibly those introduced for vocabulary) or number sequences could be given.

Operational Principles
The point has been made in the principles and assumptions underpinning a school-based educational broadcasting service that programmes will need to be repeated. This is exacerbated by the problem that one cannot assume, where televisions or radios are in schools, that there is more than one of either. It is also reasonable to assume that there are up to four classes at each level within a typical large school, making up sixteen student cohorts at Foundation Phase in many institutions (or twelve if there is no Reception Year). Consequently, repeats of programmes each week may be necessary to cater for allow schools to cater for multiple student cohorts. In addition, given resource constraints at schools, programmes should be re-broadcast outside school hours. This is simplified in some ways by the existence of programme platforms such as Dumani, which are already broadcast outside of school hours. Aspects of Dumani could quite conceivably be prepared for broadcast during school hours. In this way, parents could, over time, also be engaged to participate in educational processes through the school service.

In addition, however, Foundation Phase education depends strongly for its success on home language education. Consequently, programmes will need to be dubbed into various languages and re-broadcast in these languages. To ensure cost-effectiveness, it would be appropriate to dub only those programmes that are likely to have educational and commercial value as video or audio resources. This would ensure that the costs of dubbing contribute to building a resource base that can be made available to schools in the future. Again, the example of Dumani illustrates that, using existing programmes, it is possible to use the implementation of the school-based service as an opportunity to make programmes such as this available in more languages than is currently the case. This principle is clearly in conflict with the principle of repeating programmes. We believe that, in a context of scarce resources and given the primacy of language in Foundation Phase education, the conflict should be resolved in favour of reducing same-language repeats and rather re-broadcasting programmes in different languages. Given practical constraints, we believe that school-based broadcasting should go out in five languages during 1999. We do, however, note the practical difficulties of making dubbing work effectively. From this perspective, it is essential that due account be taken of these difficulties and significant time and financial resource be devoted to ensuring effective translation and dubbing.

It has been pointed out above that, both locally and internationally, there is already much high quality educational broadcasting. Thus, a principle for constructing school-based services is that production of new programmes and series of programmes should be kept to a minimum. Furthermore, where new productions are commissioned, these should focus exclusively on developing resources that lend themselves to recording or purchase on cassette, so that they contribute meaningfully to developing the resource base at South African schools.

Taking into account the range of issues outlined throughout this chapter, we believe that the following operational principles ought to apply to the scheduling of broadcasting during the week:

•    Given the integrated nature of the curriculum at Foundation Phase, it is neither necessary nor appropriate to develop programming that focuses explicitly on specific grades. Nevertheless, some differentiation of the educational maturity of different learners within the Foundation Phase is necessary (and this is not necessarily reflected by the grade at which individual learners are or their age). For this reason, we recommend that school-based Foundation Phase broadcasting be separated into two levels, one aimed at less mature learners, the other at more mature learners. For reference purposes, we will refer to these as early and late level respectively.
•    We have suggested above that broadcasting needs to take place in different languages at the Foundation Phase level, and have recommended that five languages be chosen to start. Given the reality that schools have limited access to physical resources, we believe it to be inappropriate to broadcast in a single language on one day, because this is likely to mean that different classes within schools are likely to want to make use of programmes broadcast immediately after one another. This will create logistical problems where only one television set is available. Consequently the week might follow the following type of format (the languages chosen below are illustrative only):

There are various other operational principles worth listing briefly:

•    Ensure that programmes demonstrating activities or tasks are realistic in terms of the kinds of resources they expect to be available for use by teachers and learners within the schools.
•    Make the aim of programmes clear and overt, either within the programme itself or through the use of continuity presentation (this should be supported by advance information circulated to teachers on the programmes).
•    Ensure that programmes can be used across grades within the Foundation Phase, particularly to support those teachers whose classes contain students from more than one grade.

What Role for Radio?
As we have indicated, radio is unlikely to engage in much, if any school-based broadcasting at all, at least in the short to medium term. Nevertheless, one specific suggestion has emerged that we believe is worth noting, and this is the concept of establishing regional news services for education, and schools in particular. The descriptions of international broadcasting have noted the existence of educational news programmes that exist in various countries, while the value of the concept has also been noted repeatedly in consultative workshops run as part of this research process.

There are two types of news broadcasts that may be worth considering:
•    News services aimed at the general school community, including teachers, parents, governing bodies of schools, provincial administrators, and learners; and
•    News services aimed directly at children.
The first type of news services could be broadcast at any appropriate time of the day, depending on the contexts and demands of the particular area being supported by the service. The latter, however, could be broadcast at the beginning of the school day, and possibly be integrated into timetables for schools as appropriate. News services of this nature could be either weekly or daily, depending on local demand and availability of airtime. An important additional function of these services could be to promote the general school broadcasting service, with particular reference to television programmes and non-broadcast support strategies (in the latter case, focusing on strategies and events specific to the region in which the broadcast is taking place). In this way, radio could be a very useful role within the overall school service.

This chapter has attempted to tackle the difficult task of defining a school-based educational broadcasting service, and fitting this within broader notions of a general school educational broadcasting service. In doing this, it has presented arguments about how such services ought to be conceptualized and planned in South Africa, and narrowed down a specific focus for a school-based service in this country. The discussion has, however, focused primarily on the broadcasting elements of such a service. In chapter six, we will expand on this by outlining a strategy for costing this broadcasting, before going on to describe some of the support strategies that will be essential to the implementation of school broadcasting services in South Africa.