UNESCO supports educational radio and TV

A new radio and television programme supported by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) looks set to address the dire needs of public awareness and civil education in remote parts of Afghanistan. "This is a hugely significant project because the educational needs of Afghanistan are so great," Martin Hadlow, the UNESCO country director, told IRIN in the Afghan capital Kabul. "Not only that, but it is vital to reach the unreachable." He explained that the project aimed at ensuring that people living in remote areas, the sick, the infirm and those who had to stay at home had the chance to participate in formal and informal educational opportunities. In addition, the use of modern media, especially radio, as a tool in education, facilitated efforts to span geographical barriers such as mountains and deserts. In the 1970s and 1980s, broadcasting in Afghanistan was a major non-formal educational resource. In the remote valleys of this vast and mountainous country, villagers and farmers could tune in to hear farming tips and ways to improve cultivation. Basic literacy programmes and course-related skills training for teachers were also broadcast. However, when the civil conflict came to Kabul, the Educational Radio and TV (ERTV) centre was all but destroyed and educational transmissions almost came to an end. Hadlow said that UNESCO had undertaken the project with US $2.5 million in funding from the government of Italy, to completely upgrade and rehabilitate distance education services in the country. "This programme is very important in a war-torn country like Afghanistan in that most of the people are uneducated. They cannot read, therefore radio and TV can be very effective for them," Rahmatullah Begana, ERTV's general director, told IRIN, noting that they wanted to expand their programmes, with the support of UNESCO, throughout the country in an effort to help urban and rural people alike. Hadlow added they were looking to start an experimental FM radio and television service in Kabul for educational broadcasting - something that could hopefully expand. Programming would include a substantial number of non-formal educational areas such as legal issues, democracy-building, literacy and even life-skills advice for health workers, farmers and other people living in remote areas of the country. UNESCO has a policy of "lifelong learning" and believes this encompasses a multitude of topics. "This is not just about 'chalk and talk' formal classroom teaching. This is about new ways of learning and new ways of teaching, thus helping Afghanistan to move ahead," Hadlow noted. Some 70 staff members of the ERTV centre have now relocated to the building from their former offices in Afghanistan Radio-Television and are already producing a range of new educational programmes. Under the project, UNESCO has already provided three months of intensive training in broadcasting techniques, the use of digital equipment, programme production, English language proficiency, as well as computer literacy. In the next phase of the project, 10 ERTV staff members will receive advanced training at the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development (AIBD) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The newly renovated ERTV facility was officially opened on 1 July by Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO.