While schools were closed during the Ebola crisis, the IRC ensured that children in Sierra Leone have been able to continue to learn through informal learning groups, educational radio programs, and access to library books. Photo: Sara Laskowski/IRC

Rapid evidence summary: Delivering education through radio

Exploring community and interactive radio programs to inform our work during COVID-19

As we explore the channels that can best deliver education services to our clients in the midst of COVID-19, radio has emerged as a valuable platform. In our latest rapid evidence summary, we found that the advantages of using radio are plenty. It is a well-established and multi-user medium, even in hard-to-reach settings. Radio is also relatively cheap and easy to operate — even for children.

The literature supports audio-based technology, like radios, for educational instruction. Even though the evidence base is largely positive, it mostly comes from less rigorous assessments. We identified two higher quality impact evaluations, including one in Benin and another in Ethiopia. The remaining studies were either literature reviews, observational studies, or case studies.

Key programs that stood out include community radio in Benin that emphasized the importance of education and parental involvement in children’s schooling. The impact evaluation showed this program positively raised parents’ investments in books and tuition and also improved literacy.

Interactive Radio Instruction (IRI) is another program that was thoroughly covered throughout the literature in a number of African countries, such as Ethiopia, Zambia, Sudan, Somalia, as well as South Asia, East Asia and Latin America. IRI is an instructional tool that delivers active learning packages via radio broadcast. The lessons are interactive in that a dialogue is created among the classroom teacher/facilitator, the students, and the radio personalities.

IRI positively impacted student literacy and numeracy across the different contexts studied — impacts were similar for both girls and boys, as well as for rural/hard-to-reach and urban areas. Additionally, IRI delivered the highest impact when it was used in a multi-channel approach — when different educational strategies were intentionally combined and traditional and non-traditional approaches reinforced each other. For example, when IRI was introduced with new textbooks or when combined with video lessons through an iPod, improvements were evident.

Even though IRI can have higher initial costs, once the system is in place costs significantly decrease. Costs per learner also decrease proportionally with any increase in users. Community and interactive radio programs have the potential to significantly support education service delivery in the humanitarian contexts in which we work.

Learn more about the interventions, results, and limitations in the full rapid summary.

See more evidence summaries on a variety of interventions in the link below

Rapid evidence reviews for humanitarian programming during COVID-19