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How Radio is Supporting Education Worldwide
To celebrate World Radio Day Ann Beatty, our Chief Executive was interviewed on the Learn Radio, Seeds of Creativity show. You can listen to the whole show here:
At the Steve Sinnott Foundation we work with teachers and educators both internationally and in the UK to support access to education for all children. We work at a grass roots level to make a change to education across the globe and we do this by working in partnership with educators on the ground who scope and manage each project locally, so they are fit for purpose, sustainable and replicable.
Our main aim is working with educators to create independence not dependency. Ann is also the UK coordinator for UNESCO ASPnet schools which is a global learning programme which has been running for over 65 years and has 12,000 members in over 182 countries. In the UK we have just over 100 schools.
Coronavirus has had a huge impact on how we are all working and I think one thing the pandemic has illustrated to everyone is how connected we all are. We don't exist in bubbles we are all connected across the world so I think everybody knows we've seen schools close to over 1.6 billion students globally. Although schools have reopened in many countries many children may never return to school, and for those that do their education has been interrupted.
At the Foundation we've had to look at a new way of working and moving some projects online where possible. The key has been keeping everyone safe, the main thing is that we've had to be flexible and open minded to how projects might work in the future.
Talking about global connectivity, we have found that digital connectivity is missing in many places. Even in the UK there is a level of poverty where people can't afford connectivity. But in some of the countries that we work in they don't often have electricity either. Actually, Wi-Fi is sometimes not available and if it is the cost is really out of their reach.
We've worked in the Gambia and in Sierra Leone providing solar powered radios, and that's worked particularly well because even if you're in a very rural village you can get access to radio. It’s been hugely successful with thousands of children learning safely during the last year.
So, what the government and the teacher unions have done is that in the local radio stations they've recorded lessons, and broadcast them. This is backed that up with paper workbooks so these learning resources are delivered to the villages and the schools so that students continue learning. The teachers have been able to use the radio programmes to develop the learning and do extra lessons with the students.
But in some areas the teachers found that students had neither radios or electricity. So Solar Powered radios were the best solution. The Gambia Teachers Union asked the Steve Sinnott Foundation to step in and help get radios out to these students.
The listeners to the show found it amazing to hear how radios are being used in The Gambia to support thousands of children learning in the last year through government and locally recorded lessons that children can access through solar powered radios.
Ann was asked how can UK schools get more involved with the organisation and support the SDG 4 for education. We have resources on our website listed here:
• Storytelling resource pack
• Home learning resource pack
• Education and Human Rights calendar
• Life Long Learning Webinars
• Fundraising ideas pack
You can purchase a solar radio for about £25 and that includes buying them in country and delivering them. Marie Antoinette Corr, General Secretary of Gambia Teachers Union said hello from The Gambia, and said the solar powered radios are having a great impact on teaching and learning especially in the rural areas it is a great resource.
You can also support the positive periods project we have set up, because girls are missing about 50 days every year from school just because they have their period. So we have set up a project where teachers and educators are teaching girls to make their own reusable eco-friendly Pads.
One teacher listening to the show said that they are trying to introduce a screen free Friday every week now where children will do active art or paper based activities rather than watching live lessons on a screen.
Another teacher asked if schools in the UK can link with other schools across the globe via radio programmes like this one.
Ann explained that so far, we have done some global online learning and sometimes the connectivity doesn't work. We did a Storytelling session with schools from Haiti, The Gambia, Sierra Leone and the UK and it worked extremely well, although sometimes the connectivity is a bit poor so we had to turn our camera’s off.
Learn Radio presenter Russell explained “I'm sure we could. I mean we've done live shows for BBC Radio 4 before so we transmit across the Internet, then Radio 4 picks it up off the Internet and then broadcasts it live on their channel. The fact that we've got a listener in The Gambia right now means that our signals are getting there so what we need to do is to play that into a radio station and then broadcast it locally and then hey presto they can sit back have a break and we then take the Airways over. So absolutely it is possible.”
Ann was asked how does the Foundation decides what projects to focus on in each country and which country takes priority. We work where we are asked to work by teachers and educators on the ground. Steve Sinnott was the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers which is now the National Education Union and his passion was international education and so we work mainly but not exclusively with educators through teacher unions.
Each project is put forward to myself and our trustees and we look at each project on its merit and also decide whether or not it's going to be affordable for us because the more projects we get asked to do the more funding that we need. So, we have to prioritise and the most important thing for us is that we are working in partnership, that it is sustainable, and the people on the ground can manage it locally.
Listeners were fascinated to listen about how we can use radio globally.
Within UNESCO we connect with schools globally so we host schools from other countries so for example we've hosted some schools from Russia, South Korea, Japan, Germany. Quite a wide range of schools and also some of our UNESCO ASP net schools do trips to other countries. Although that's not possible now, we still connect and share learning. So, if you go to the UNESCO website, you'll be able to find a whole section on how you can join up and there's lots of resources on there too.
On the UNESCO site there are lots of resources for World Radio Day, and how you can make your own radio show, think about innovation, and invent a radio for the future! There are lots of resources for schools to get involved with.
In fact, many listeners agreed that just listening to the radio give students some time off from screens and devices and lets them relax. Listening is an important skill, and gets them to use their imagination too.
It also diversifies communities because quite often some of the people who are left out in rural areas, for example, they rely very heavily on radio for information. So, I think teachers could think outside the box a little bit with radio and use it to offer diversity and ideas.
One very important thing is to get students practising listening and speaking skills. They could design their own radio shows, it could be just in the classroom or sharing it as a podcast even. It is a really good medium for developing the power of speaking and listening.
During lockdown radio really is enabling people to stay connected whether it's local radio or national radio, or even you know international radio.
Even in this country we've got lots of listeners that are listing on very old mobile phones because it's actually bandwidth light. It doesn’t need much bandwidth so you don't need those kinds of expensive broadband contracts even if wanted to listen to us all day. That's quite powerful for tech poor households. It’s a brilliant method of reaching folks.
Some of us remember windup radios. Ann had one in Sierra Leone some years back found it didn't work very well because she got fed up of winding it up. The changes in solar power technology has been phenomenal in the last few years so now solar radios are really great.
Radio really can reach all four corners of the globe now with solar power and small bandwidth. So, with quality content this becomes the community, our listeners are our community and it is always such a pleasure and a joy to be able to connect with them and that's what makes radio really really special. Sponsoring a solar radio is a great way to encourage children in the UK to support the sustainable development goals.
Many listeners were grateful for hearing about our projects and we had many donations come in during the radio show and after it. We are really grateful to Learn Radio for the opportunity to tell more people about our work, give them an opportunity to get involved and think of more ways they can use radios in their educational settings. Some schools have already started a school radio show and the children love listening to it and interviewing people.
So thank you once again, and let’s keep using radio for education.
The Steve Sinnott Foundation • Feb 15, 2021
Education has been identified as a key aspect to achieve societal development. This has been highlighted with the 2015 sustainable development goals, with goal 4 being to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Education has also shifted to being a means to transmit peace and global tolerance through increasing the understanding of other cultures. This has tied in with the rise of capacity development initiatives in development practice that seek to empower and enable individuals and communities to build upon their preexisting capacities. It is a key strategy to ensure educational development by international organisations, governments, and communities. The main principles of capacity development are participation, locally driven agenda, ongoing learning, long term investment and building upon local capacities. By integrating these principles into educational development, it allows for school communities to become involved in peace building activities. Through following a locally driven agenda schools can become centres for fostering peace and understanding and address local issues that may prevent children from attending or staying in school. This is what the UNESCO Associated Schools network aims to achieve by involving schools and educational institutes at a global level, creating networks of educators and students that share information, knowledge and spread UNESCOs value of peace. It aims to join schools through four pillars of learning: learning to know, learning to do, learning to be and learning to live together to create sustainable learning and teaching environments that involve communities in conservation activities, petitions and cultural events. Schools undertake social and educational projects that allow students to get involved with supporting developmental and humanitarian organisations, through fundraising and field trips. Recently The Steve Sinnott Foundation organised an international trip to Japan for the 70th Anniversary of UNESCO ASPnet for the Arts and Culture for peace exchange, bringing together students from The Gambia, Oman, Singapore, Korea and Coventry. By expanding education to include individuals and communities’ local agendas and addressing international issues, education can provide a platform for ongoing learning and development. It allows for students to develop their ability to think critically and connect with others meaning they can both learn and understand issues that might not be highlighted otherwise. By allowing schools, students, and communities to connect and direct their own development and focusing on developing existing capacities, the meaning and aim of education shifts from traditional roles to being focused upon understanding and peace.
Women’s and Girls’ Full Participation in Society: “Are Palestinian women reaping the benefits of education in similar ways to the rest of the world?” Palestinian women continue to be some of the most educated women in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region. While women’s academic participation is indeed measurable, they are not reaping the benefits of education. Palestinian women, especially educated Palestinian women, are overlooked, and under-represented in Palestinian society. Current indicators reveal that access to education has not significantly improved women’s status in Palestinian society. It is therefore imperative to benefit from Palestinian women’s education and skills in society not only as a social right, but as a development necessity. The percentage of educated women in Palestine is remarkable and one of the highest around the world with a 99.6% in 2020 for completion in primary and upper secondary. While Palestinian women have always been visible in the national struggle, they have limited leadership and decision making-opportunities. Their participation in civil society and the formal government has been restricted. In decision making positions, women comprise only 8.3% of all ministers, 0% of ministerial representatives, and 6% of assistants to the ministerial representatives. Within all ministries women comprise 30% of staff. In the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, women are the majority, comprising 68.1%. Education unions leading by example: Education unions have viewed the education of future generations, with a focus on girls, as a form of protest, resistance to the country and Arab region’s ongoing-conflict, displacement, and upheaval. Accordingly, women and girls’ education has thrived in recent years. COVID 19 crisis a catalyst for transforming education unions: Education unions voiced that an appropriate response to COVID -19 in the education sector should consider the rights and best interests of students, teachers and education support personnel and involve education unions in developing the containment and recovery measures. This response accelerated the transformation process of the largest union in Palestine, the General Union of Palestinian Teachers (GUPT). They want to have a truly representative union and integrate women educators in the union decision making structures. Despite the pandemic, GUPT continued to engage in social dialogue with the government, continued to fight for decent working conditions and welfare for teachers and education personnel and engage in a process of trade union transformation reflecting the realities of the 21st century. The union stepped up during the rapid shift to distance learning, they have developed online programmes, trained teachers on distance learning and supported students to decrease inequality among learners. The union also urged that the transformation should also challenge discrimination and increase women’s involvement in education, in trade unions and in society. This process was a driver to enhance women’s leadership within the union’s structures. From words to action: Mechanisms put in place to enhance women educators’ participation. With the support of international sister organisations, GUPT developed their own strategy to promote women’s participation and leadership within their union and in education. They developed a strategy, and we identified the following objectives: Increase the number of women in key union leadership and decision-making bodies at the regional and national level, through capacity development training on leadership for women. They have also introduced policies such as gender quotas and allocated budgets for their gender equity programmes. Activate the role of their Women’s Committee and prioritise the recruitment of young female teachers. The union is also working to identify and address the barriers to women’s participation in union leadership and decision making. In education the union is working with the Ministry of Education to review school books so that gender discrimination is not inherently written into the curriculum. GUPT is also organising sensitization training for educators so that discriminatory stereotypes are not perpetuated in the classroom. Finally, for the GUPT it is important to secure the right to education for all Palestinian students, especially girls. Teaching and learning must occur in quality, safe environments. Every effort must be made to eradicate the different types of violence that occur all too frequently in and around educational settings.
Early in my work as the president of my local teacher’s union I was invited to a community leader meeting about reforming the teaching profession. Amidst the discussion of harsher teacher evaluations, raising standards for teaching, creating easier entry into the profession, merit pay for “good” teachers, and more, I brought up the fact that working conditions and salaries hadn’t meaningfully changed since the 1960s. “We’re in favor of paying math and science teachers more so they can be compensated closer to what they’d get in the private sector,” a business community representative replied, offering an idea that was not new to me. Full disclosure: my dad was a career math teacher from that era of math and science majors who answered their government’s call to become math and science teachers who would boost the United States of America’s bench in the space race. I could easily picture how a larger salary could have changed our family’s budget. Teachers’ unions like mine (and my dad’s) addressed pay disparities based on gender that were common a generation earlier by fighting for a salary schedule focused on experience and education. So, I offered back, “If we want to differentiate pay related to the most important job in education, then we should seriously consider paying kindergarten and first grade teachers more than anyone because they teach students to read, which is the rocket science of education,” alluding to an influential issue of AFT’s American Educator magazine from 1999. “Well, I’m sure those teachers are fine but I have volunteered in first grade classrooms and their work doesn’t compare to math and science teachers.” Oh. Interesting. We clearly weren’t going to see eye to eye in our differentiated pay conversation. More so, there are decades long gender stereotypes lurking behind that conversation. In addition to the history of gender based pay inequities, elementary school teachers are assumed to be female while more secondary teachers are male. There has long been a disconnect between the importance communities, elected officials, and countries have placed on education. From local funding efforts to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4: Quality Education, support for education is nearly universal in most communities. That support for education doesn’t always translate to support for educators and, with a majority of educators worldwide being female, that sets a dangerous precedent. Our teachers deserve professional working conditions because teaching and learning begins with their expertise. Additionally, a teacher’s working conditions are a student’s learning conditions and so administrators, public officials, or policymakers mistreating, undermining, or disrespecting teachers sends a message to students that teachers do not deserve respect, fair treatment, or professionalization. In addition to a stubborn lack of recognition of teachers as professionals, a vicious cycle exists around salary. Teachers have historically low wages because it is feminized and because it is feminized teacher’s wages are suppressed. The evidence that belonging to a union, with the ability to negotiate collectively, improves teacher compensation is key in disrupting this vicious cycle. Teaching has been a feminized profession for over a century and, despite efforts to diversify the profession, remains a feminized profession. In fact, the OECD reports that the gender gap increased from 2005 to 2019. In order for our students to have the most representative learning conditions, we need the most representative teachers so we must continue to diversify teaching to represent everyone in our communities, including by gender. Efforts like Black Men Teach, active in my home state of Minnesota, can make a meaningful difference. I would posit treating the current majority female teaching population as professionals—with professional wages, recognizing their expertise in teaching and learning rather than infantilizing them, respecting their commitment to education rather than exploiting it—would both model for students the way to treat women (and thereby model for female students how they can expect to be treated in any profession) and create the conditions for everyone to see teaching as a profession worth pursuing.
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