Brett Davidson
William Smith’s Learning Channel on SABC3 is probably one of the best-known educational programmes on television and one of the most controversial among educators.
In its early days on TV, Smith’s channel incorporated hundreds of hours of recorded material, aimed at enlivening the learning experience, and helping students see the relevance of what they were learning. Although this was effective it demanded too muc h time and money. So Smith and his team settled on the current formula, which involves live classroom-like teaching on camera while students call into the studio with their questions.
A number of educators have questioned Smith’s methods, saying he is not educating students, merely teaching them how to pass exams – the TV equivalent of a cram college. The method doesn’t involve the kind of learner independence the education departmen t wants to achieve through Outcomes Based Education. While Smith says he can adapt, many educators remain sceptical. They say real education invol ves more than just passing exams.
In the meantime, it seems the students are voting with their TV on-buttons. Audience research shows the Learning Channel has a credibility rating of 88% – meaning it’s the most trusted programme on TV.
Open Sesame is a programme aimed at pre-schoolers, broadcast in Sesotho, Zulu and English, on SABC1 and SABC2. It is the international version of the phenomenally successful Sesame Street, which was first broadcast in the United States 30 years ago. The use of puppets means that dubbing into any number of languages is fairly easy – there’s no lip-syncing to do.
It uses a magazine format, combining studio scenes, animation and live-action segments, designed to teach children a range of cognitive, social and emotional skills.
An important feature of the programme is extensive end-user support. Educators work with caregivers, such as mothers, librarians and teachers, showing them how to use the programme with children, to reinforce and extend the educational messages.
It is not yet certain whether dubbing is effective with young children, but the SABC is about to conduct research into this. Nevertheless, “research has conclusively shown that pre-school instruction is one of the most effective areas of educational TV” according to SABC education TV head, Nicola Galombik.
SABC1’s Sunday morning teachers’ programme, Educator Express, recently beat around 120 international entries to win a special commendation in the prestigious Japan Prize – an international contest for educational programmes. It is further evidence of the rapid progress being made in educational broadcasting locally.
The programme aims to inform teachers of policy changes that affect them, to provide practical classroom tips, and to motivate, by profiling teachers who have managed to make a difference despite the odds against them.
The Kagiso Educational Television production team gets teachers themselves to present the programme and to conduct investigations into the issues of the day. At the time of the outcry over matric failures a Soweto mother set out to find out why her daugh ter had failed – and her journey took her from the badly managed school to MEC for Education Mary Metcalfe. Finally, there was a focus on a school in Orange Farm which, despite being under-resourced, managed an 89% pass rate. Inspiring and entertaining stuff for any viewer, but the 9.30am broadcast time could prove a deterrent to demotivated teachers.