Satellite radio for education

EDUSAT, according to the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), is the first exclusive satellite for serving the educational sector. It supports radio broadcasting, along with audio-video on C-band and Ku-band, and is built around the concept of digital interactive classrooms and a multimedia system.

The satellite has multiple regional beams covering different parts of India, which theoretically enables programmes to be broadcast in relevant local languages – India has 18 official languages and over 1500 dialects. “India will require 10,000 new schools each year and meeting the teaching needs on such a scale [by conventional methods] will be impossible,” Madhavan Nair, chairman of ISRO told New Scientist at the launch of the satellite.

EDUSAT can provide connectivity to schools, colleges and higher levels of education and also support non-formal education including developmental communication. The nation-wide beams are being harnessed by agencies like IGNOU, NCERT and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), to reach hundreds of Receive Only Terminals (ROTs) and Satellite Interactive Terminals (SITs) located in schools and colleges, many in remote areas.

Content generation is the responsibility of user agencies, but it is a matter of concern that, over a year after the satellite was launched, much of its capacity is lying idle.

Satellite access for radio broadcasting is also available on other platforms like WorldSpace, which offers a ‘development channel’ to agencies like Equal Access for networking community FM channels (as in Nepal), or for directly broadcasting development and educational programmes for community listening on WorldSpace receivers.

The promise of radio
U.K. Open University’s notable success with educational radio has demonstrated how invaluable radio can be for weak students, who benefit from the medium as a supplementary learning tool. But the use of radio for distance education in India, as mentioned earlier, has had mixed results. AIR’s educational broadcasts are

All the same, it has been amply proved that radio – rightly used – can improve educational quality and relevance, lower educational costs and improve access to education, particularly for disadvantaged groups. It is most effective when supported by trained facilitators, group learning, group discussion, feedback and the use of multimedia approaches.

There is no single ideal format for educational radio. Innovative programming like those developed by Sesame Workshop in Africa, for instance, offer some very effective approaches to non-formal education over radio. Recently, AIR agreed to a proposal from Sesame Workshop India to provide airtime on national and regional radio channels for locally produced versions of the universally popular ‘Sesame Street’. The programmes would be aimed at pre-schoolers, and would also provide under-served children with access to educational media, especially in rural areas.

India spends just 3.4% of its GNP on education. Over 35% of the population is illiterate, and the drop out rate in schools is staggeringly high, with 40% of all school-going children dropping out during the primary stage itself. The percentage of dropouts goes up to 67% by Class X. The Supreme Court of India (in 1993) has declared education of children up to 14 years to be a fundamental right, but school attendance is related to the perceived importance of education by parents, and also to socio-economic factors.

Despite rapid developments in communication technologies in the last few decades, radio broadcasting remains the cheapest mode of mass communication in India, catering equally to the needs of the rich and the poor, rural and the urban masses and reaching the remotest parts of the country. In a country where the literacy rate is 65%, and fewer than 50% of homes are electrified, the humble transistor radio plays a vital role in the country’s socio-economic and cultural development.

Rural and deprived communities, with low literacy rates and little access to formal education, stand to benefit the most from distance learning through community radio. If and when such communities are permitted to set up their own low power radio stations – and 4000 such community radio stations are possible in India, according to government estimates – then we could witness a revolution in education far beyond anything dreamt of by the purveyors of digital technology in a digitally divided country.

Using radio for education and community development is part of the 75-year-old Reithian ambition for radio broadcasting. Children and youth can be easily and cheaply trained, and the goals of universal primary and secondary education for all can be reached more easily with broadcast support. Among the poor and marginalized people of the country, radio could even create a new class of people – educated but illiterate.