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John Tuckey
Project Manager
BBC World Service Trust
The Somalia Distance Educational Literacy Programme (SOMDEL) gave nearly 10,000 Somalis the opportunity to learn basic literacy, numeracy and life skills through a weekly radio programme broadcast on BBC World Service. Programmes were produced that were close to the experience of Somalis, exploring issues on health, human rights and sustaining the environment in rural areas.
A newly published report revealed that of the 9,600 people, who signed up for SOMDEL, 70% were women and 9,600 passed their final exam. The programme, known locally in Somali as Macallinka Raddiya (Radio Teacher), reached many areas in Somalia where conflict and lack of resources has prevented any other form of educational delivery. In special cases radios were provided to those who needed them.
One group of women in Somalia were completely delighted with their new-found reading and writing skills. Straight away they were earning more money: this is poverty alleviation in action. These women had learned through the seemingly unlikely idea of teaching literacy by radio. Radio is far from the ideal medium for teaching literacy as reading and writing are, for most people, visual activities. It was, though, the best way of reaching people who needed it the most.
Somalia has never had a very high literacy rate, and, after 15 years of civil war, with the violence still going on in many areas, there has been no chance of improving it. There are not enough Somali teachers, and enticing large numbers of Western volunteers is hard. So the only choice is to use the mass media, and radio is by far the most widespread medium in Somalia, with the BBC Somali Service - part of the World Service - by far the most popular broadcaster. Hence, the Africa Educational Trust (AET) and BBC World Service Trust devised SOMDEL, teaching literacy by radio. And it seems to have worked, far better than any of us could have expected.
The broadcasts ran for a year, and ended this March, but the final exam results have only just reached us. Just over 10,000 people registered as learners and 9,600 passed the exam. Meanwhile, an independent evaluation by Dr Alicia Fentiman of the International Research Foundation for Open Learning has also just given its findings, and they are very positive, reporting that the project has had an extensive motivating impact throughout the country. Nothing like this has happened in Somalia in the last 20 years.
The project was started by publicity on the air and through AET's representatives on the ground, inviting communities to register. Once registered, a community had to nominate a teacher, who could be someone with relatively little skill, since basic training was provided. At that training, the teacher was given the first batch of print materials, which, alongside the radio programmes, provided the real teaching. The project taught literacy through life skills: the programmes discussed issues of human rights, health and environmental protection, always carefully targeted at the Somali audience. This gave the programmes a much wider appeal than just the registered learners, and, indeed, the independent evaluation found, in a random survey in the northern town of Hargeisa, that a staggering 88% of people had listened.
The project aimed to teach basic literacy, and the exam reflected that, as well as the content of the programmes. Questions included 10 words dictated, which had to be spelt correctly and putting in letters missing from words, but then there were more demanding ones, like, "What causes erosion?" and, "What are the effects of smoking?" Here, of course, the candidate had to be able to read the question, as well as provide a coherent answer. Somalia is not an easy place to administer exams, but AET insisted on formal procedures, and worked to ensure consistency across different places, by requiring teachers to send in the top paper, a middle paper and the bottom paper. As far as is possible, then, the figures for the success of the project, as measured by the exam, are reasonably genuine.
The evaluation findings were, of course, more detailed. Dr Fentiman visited the north western area of the country, the self-styled Republic of Somaliland, and the central region, Puntland. Both of these areas are relatively stable and peaceful. A visit to the south was prevented by the continuing violence. Perhaps most surprising of the findings was that, in a male-dominated society, 70% of registered learners were women. The project also, though, revealed the huge hunger there is for education in Somalia. The evaluation reported enormously over-subscribed classes, with crowds gathered outside of the classrooms, trying to do the work. Separately, a BBC reporter saw individual Somali-speakers in Northern Kenya trying to do the work quite independently of any teacher or print material. These people had bought exercise books, and, using the nearest literate person to demonstrate how to form the letters, were trying to follow the instruction from the radio programmes.
Other findings showed why all of this is unsurprising. In large areas of Somalia, this project was the only educational provision available of any kind, especially for women and girls. And the future does not look very bright. There is a peace process going on, with a national assembly due to be constituted very shortly. Even if it works, though - and this is the fourteenth peace initiative - it will be many, many years before there will be marked improvement in educational provision on the ground. So we are looking at getting funding for a three-year continuation of the literacy project, and perhaps, for a wider distance-education project, teaching, for example, agricultural skills. Perhaps, poverty alleviation can, in itself, contribute to peace.
Of course, while Somalia may be among the most desperate, other African countries have certainly shared similar pasts, and so we are also hoping to extend the success of SOMDEL elsewhere, particularly in Rwanda and Burundi.
But, in Somalia? In one year, we have taught 9,600 Somalis to read and write, yet of the 7 million people in the country, far less than half are literate. The evaluation ends with a view of the future, "In the long term it is hoped that SOMDEL will assist in the alleviation of poverty through access to basic education for all." If the project is to achieve anything like that, it will need huge commitment on the part of donors.
John Tuckey, Project Manager for BBC World Service Trust
Copyright, John Tuckey, July 2003
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