The rise and fall of educational radio in Zimbabwe : the forgotten medium and technology

Abstract

Popularly referred to as “schools broadcasts” during the 1980s, educational radio in newly freed Zimbabwe was at the threshold of transformation into interactive radio instruction (IRI). This paper analyses the developments relating to educational radio in Zimbabwe since the late 1980s. In it, I refer to the unpublished descriptive qualitative surveys I conducted during 1989 and 1999 using questionnaires, interviews, and confirmatory observations. I hope that this will prove helpful to other countries, particularly so-called developing countries that are still using educational radio, in warding off any retrogressive forces that may lead to the collapse of the service. Zimbabwe itself could revive this once popular technological practice. The 1989 study showed that about 10% of the schools implemented the educational radio programme. About ten years later the situation had not changed significantly, as revealed by the findings in the much larger and more rural province of Mashonaland East in 1999. Now, just over a decade on, there is hardly any educational radio programme to speak of in Zimbabwe. The paper makes some recommendations that may lead to the revival of educational radio in Zimbabwe, perhaps enhanced with modern computer technology.