Christopher Kamlongera holds a PhD degree in English from the University of Leeds, U.K.
and a M.A. in Drama and Theatre Arts from the same University.
1977 to present: Director of the SADC Centre of Communication for Development, based in
Harare (Zimbabwe).
1992 to present: (currently on study leave), Professor of Theatre and Dramatic Arts
1978 to present: (currently on study leave), Chancellor College University of Malawi
1996-1997: Executive Director of the Malawi Institute of Journalism.
1975-1977: Lecturer in English Malawi Polytechnic.
Professor Kamlongera's main fields of interests are: Social Mobilisation/Communication for
Development - Performing Arts in Communications - Drama and English Language Teaching -
Arts Administration - Textbook writing (English Language, Theatre Studies, Culture).
Professor Kamlongera has worked with several Universities in Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
He has published many articles on various topics related to his fields of interest, case
studies monographs and books. He has undertaken consultancies for WHO, UNICEF, OXFAM,
USAID, FAO, BRITISH COUNCIL, GTZ and UNFPA.
The paper has been developed out of a survey on the needs of the Trainers in Rural Radio conducted by CIERRO and SADC.
The paper looks at the status of training in Rural Radio in Africa. It argues that while there are some radio stations claiming to engage in rural radio, actually they are not set up as such. Their claims often spring from the fact that they broadcast in the vernacular and that they carry some developmental messages.
The paper goes on to demonstrate that so far (except for CIERRO) there are no formal training institutions on the continent specializing in Rural Radio. Just as this is the case, there are not many trainers in this domain of radio work.
The paper comes up with suggestions for improving this scenario. These suggestions have been based on expressed needs by informants who responded to questionnaires of the survey.
This paper is based on a survey initiated by the CTA (Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Development) and the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) and carried out by CIERRO (Inter-African Centre for Rural Radio Studies of Ouagadougou) and SADC-CCD (Southern African Development Community - Centre of Communication for Development). The survey was a continuation of the workshop that was organized by the FAO in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in June 1996. The workshop set out to identify challenges and underlying questions that rural radio faces in Africa. Twenty-one African countries and several international Organizations were represented at this workshop.
Rural radio in Africa is considered the best means of communicating with rural populations. It offers the people a way for holding democratic dialogue on social, economic and cultural issues. These issues are often related to development in the rural, the periurban and urban areas. Such a dialogue is facilitated by the very nature of radio. It is a communication tool that is most fitting to support and promote rural development due to its low cost, high adaptability (to a variety of situations and audiences) and its accessibility. It is these characteristics that led to the setting up of rural radio stations in Africa (regardless of their status). Most of these rural radio stations were established without proper legal and institutional arrangements. The stations were also set up without adequate equipment for the production of programs or the training of producers, technicians and managers.
Having recognized the gaps that exist in rural radio competencies, several countries approached the FAO for assistance. They requested FAO to help them to overcome constraints and to develop their infrastructure and training capacities. They also asked for equipment. Thus, the FAO in collaboration with URTNA have been involved in improving radio broadcasting in Africa. As part of this initiative, CIERRO (which is the only specialized centre in the domain of rural radio in Africa) with the support of several bilateral and multilateral cooperation partners - notably CTA - has been called upon to render support.
The 1996 Ouagadougou workshop made a declaration that called for this survey. This declaration recognized CTA's contribution that centred around the following areas:
With the emergence of civil society and pluralism of radio in Africa in general, there is a very urgent need for trained personnel to run radio stations. This can only be possible if there are sufficient numbers of trainers. So far those who have been training others, including those in rural radio, have been doing so forced by circumstances. They do not have the prerequisite competence to handle psycho-pedagogical issues that go with the art of training.
It is in an attempt to meet this urgent need that CTA and FAO, in collaboration with CIERRO proposed and initiated the survey on training needs. The decision to launch this survey in 1999 was taken by the two institutions at a meeting of CTA's partners in rural radio programme held between 19 and 20 March 1999.
The major objectives of the survey were to strengthen rural radio in Africa and to identify what qualified human resources (qualified in training and development of methodologies relevant for rural radio training) exist on the continent.
The expected outputs of the survey were:
This paper will dwell on the first of these outputs i.e., identified needs of trainers in rural radio.
a. Clarification of the Concept of Rural Radio
Rural radio is a means of broadcasting whose programs are mostly meant for the rural world. These programs are received or produced for sustainable development. However, in this study we broadened the scope of rural radio to include urban and periurban oriented radio as long as it addresses the issues of sustainable development.
b. The sampling
The countries of the survey were selected on the basis of their effective participation at the international workshop on the development of rural radio in Africa that was held in Ouagadougou in June 1996 and their fitting into the geographical areas of Western, Central, Southern, and Eastern Africa. Apart from these criteria, the selection was also guided by critical mass of radio stations activities in rural radio in the countries.
Information on the number of radio stations per country was drawn from results of a survey done by CTA and GRET between 1997 and 1998, which came up with an inventory for all African countries south of the Sahara and, the Caribbean and the Pacific Islands.
The following countries were selected on the basis of this survey:
Group A: West and Central Africa |
Group B: East and Southern Africa |
Benin |
Kenya |
The inventory done by CTA and GRET also helped this survey to define segments of respondents to be targeted in each country i.e., how many of these were to be interviewed per country. On the basis of this, it was decided to interview the following respondents per country:
For the remainder of the 8 West African countries, (Benin, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal) it was decided that the survey would cover 10 rural radio trainers per country, i.e. a total of 80 respondents. For Central Africa (Chad, Republic of Central Africa, Cameroon and Congo) the survey was to cover 5 rural radio producers per country i.e. a total of 20 respondents.
For the Southern and Eastern African countries (Zimbabwe, Malawi, Kenya, Zambia and Tanzania), it was decided to target 5 respondents per country. This gave a total of 25 respondents.
c. Questionnaires
Three sets of questionnaires were developed for the exercise. These were on:
Alongside the questionnaires there was an interview guide for their administration. The third questionnaire covered not just radio producers but potential trainers as well. Two criteria were proposed for identifying trainers:
While these questionnaires were to guide the collection of data in the field, each consultant was expected to come up with their own working methodology. This was to include selection of radio stations in service in the country in accordance with the indicated numbers for each country.
d. Limitations
While the survey targeted 21 countries, only 18 responded. Three consultants from Ghana, Mauritania and Guinea-Bissau did not turn in their reports and questionnaires. Of the 294 respondents, only 118, i.e., 43% responded to the question on trainers and potential trainers.
This situation is similar to that experienced when the radio stations were being investigated. Of the 314 radio stations approached, only 197 responded, i.e., 62.7%.
Reasons for this were:
The number of trainers accessed is a function of available competencies in the radio stations. In fact, all the investigated radio stations do not have any qualified resource people capable of carrying out training. On the other hand, there were certain parts of the questionnaires that were not answered despite the interviewers' insistence.
In spite of all these insufficiencies, the quality of results obtained from the representative samples of rural radio from the targeted countries has not been compromised.
1.1 Types of Radio Stations and Their Personnel
One can distinguish two types of radio stations existing in the countries covered in this study. These are public radio stations and private radio stations. In most of the countries, the two types of radio stations operate side by side. In other countries only public radio stations exist. These might be divided into regional stations but nevertheless they remain a monopoly of government.
The effectiveness of staff working in these radio stations varies according to the load of work and the type of radio station they work for. Public broadcasting stations tend to employ more people than private ones and therefore they have more categories of workers. Unlike those in the public sector, private radio stations employ between 3 to 35 people. Ability to carry out different jobs is the rule here. One person very often functions as producer, presenter and even as a technician. Some stations also use volunteers.
1.2 Existence of rural radio within Broadcasting stations
Since all radio stations in the area of study, broadcast in local languages and to a large extent, target rural communities, they view themselves as operating rural radio. However, very few of these radio stations if any, have a structure called rural radio nor does any one of them behave as such.
When requested to give the number of rural programs produced, most private radio stations have not been able to give an answer. This may be explained by the fact that they do not quite understand the concept of rural radio. Other stations however claim that they produce a certain number of programs per week. When one looks at the West and Central African radio stations closely, one notes that they are those that have had some of their personnel trained by CIERRO of Ouagadougou directly or indirectly.
1.3 Equipment
When it comes to communication equipment, it is to be noted that a number of radio stations have data processing and digital audio equipment. Some radio stations are even connected to the Internet. Some also have e-mail facilities. A few of them even possess a parabolic antenna.
2.1 Training needs
All radio stations expressed an urgent need for training in various aspects of rural radio. Failing to give the required training to their workers, managers of radio stations are often content to give the minimum knowledge on rural radio for the functioning of their stations. Such knowledge is often obtained in practice and from colleagues that have been trained by other older colleagues. While opportunities do arise from time to time for employees to be sent for academic training at specialized institutions both within and outside the country, lack of finances, qualified teachers and equipment make this a very rare treat.
At the moment, there are no training plans in place in any of the countries of this study aimed at giving radio workers a set of basic principles for running a rural radio station. However, the need for this kind of training has been expressed by individuals rather than being suggested by existing training programmes. Training programmes in rural radio that are urgently needed revolve around three or four principle subjects directly related to radio production skills specific to, and the management of a rural radio station (production, presentation, management and administration, etc.) or other types of general training in the domain of communication.
In most radio stations, there are no formal arrangements for training. This lack of arrangements seems to be linked to lack of adequate training equipment, qualified trainers and appropriate infrastructure.
2.2 The nature of training institutions
The survey revealed that of the 18 investigated countries 14 have at least one training institution for radio work. The training institutions are either public or private. In certain countries there are only public institutions (Cameroon and Congo), whereas in others there are public and private ones (South Africa). In others, public and private training institutions exist side by side (Benin and Kenya).
2.3 Finances and equipment
The public institutions are financed by the State, which provides them with annual grants. The private institutions on the other hand, depend on student fees.
Equipment in most of these institutions is limited to infrastructure (building and motor vehicles). Only Congo and Malawi seem to have some production, reporting, data processing and broadcasting equipment (in the case of Malawi). Very rarely do institutions have satellite equipment. For most institutions their equipment is obsolete.
2.4 Teaching Staff
The teaching personnel where available is essentially composed of permanent and temporary staff with the former being in larger numbers. The level of education for these varies from a Bachelors degree to Doctorate level. These graduates have been trained at African, European, American, Japanese and Indian Universities. Their specialization is very varied. They cover all areas of communication e.g.; journalism, radio broadcasting, television production, radio and video maintenance, sociology of information and communication sciences, ethics, international relations, economics of media, etc.
2.5 Level of Training in the Institutions
Two types of training exist in most institutions, namely:
The duration of long-term training varies from two to four years and it leads to university certificate/degree or a license or a Masters degree in communication.
The short-term training generally lasts one week or, at most, three weeks.
2.6 Programme, Methods of Teaching and Assessment
All the institutions that have been surveyed indicate that 60% of their training is devoted to theory while 40% is devoted to practicals. Their programmes of study include the following courses:
Teaching in these institutions takes all forms. It is done through lectures, seminars, tutorials, field trips, research and practical assignments. More emphasis is placed on practical training, in the form of field experience, than the others.
For most institutions the methodology employed in their training stresses the exchange of experience among students, and participation of the students. Assessment of the students is based on continuous assessment and final examinations.
Some institutions also demand the submission of projects in television or radio; end of training report or dissertations based on original research.
2.7 Training Equipment
Most equipment in these training institutions relates to areas of documentation, production, reporting and teaching aids. All the institutions engaged in training have a minimum of these. For instance, they have basic equipment for radio and video production.
2.8 Institution Capacity
The number of students that can be enrolled in these institutions and by country varies from 4 to 200 as shown below:
Institution |
Number of students |
Harare Polytechnic - Zimbabwe |
4 to 10 |
Inter School of Technic-Benin |
10 to 20 |
CIERRO |
20 to 30 |
IFTIC - Niger |
40 to 60 |
2 · Congo |
90 to 100 |
FRCN - Nigeria |
200 |
2.9 Rural Radio Component in Training Institutions
Apart from CIERRO there is no other institutions in French speaking Africa that trains in rural radio. Trainers working in these institutions have knowledge of radio in general but very little in rural radio as such. On the other hand, in the English speaking institutions - of Southern Africa particularly - one notes that there are some classes, which relate to the rural world or rural development.
Trainers in rural radio are very few. This is very unlike the situation in classical radio.
The survey found out that potential trainers are mostly male permanent staff of the radio stations. Some radio stations have a few women trainers. These trainers very often are drawn from the level of managers. They could be a manager, editor, chief of presentation or production or maintenance section or rural radio. Most of them have a satisfactory academic background and have several years of professional experience.
These are often holders of either university diplomas or degrees (baccalaureate, bachelors or masters in various subjects including engineering). Most of these received professional training lasting between two to five years from recognized professional institutions. Among these trainers, one finds a good number of former students of the CIERRO, notably among those from West and Central Africa.
3.1 Training of the Trainers
Most people identified as trainers in this survey have not received any "trainers" training. They cite lack of opportunity as the major reason for this state of affairs. Only a few of them have done training courses organised by institutions like Deutsche Welle at Bamako (Mali), at the CIERRO (Burkina Faso), as well as at the Institute for Advancement of Journalism, (University of Witwatersrand in South Africa), Radio Netherlands, the BBC (United Kingdom), other places in Asia, and in the United States of America.
3.2 Training in Rural Radio
Very few of the trainers have received long-term training in rural radio. Those who have done so got it from the CIERRO in Burkina Faso. Countries that have products of this training can be found in radio stations of Benin, Burkina Faso, Congo, Mali, the RCA, Chad, Guinea, Senegal, Malawi, Gambia, Niger, Cameroon. Among these trainers are those that followed both the two year programme and the short term programme that last between one to three months.
3.3 Training Supervision
3.3.1 Disciplines Taught
In most of radio stations, there is no systematic training in place. It is not organised in a formal manner. Those people who have undergone such training are not in a position to point out exactly what disciplines they were taught. Very often, they merely recall some aspects of what their on-the-job training contained. They mention rural radio, treatment of information, presentation, production, reporting, radio broadcasting, audio maintenance, sound recording, presentation of information on the air, management, marketing, journalism, radio drama, audience survey, librarianship, participatory research, programme scheduling, etc.
3.3.2 Methods used
All respondents claim that the following methodologies were used:
Most mentioned methods were those that involved group work and discussions. Other techniques mentioned were brainstorming and moderation.
3.3.3 Teaching Aids
There are no specific teaching aids that are cited as having been used in this training. However the most commonly used teaching aid is the black board. A few trainers claim to be familiar with use of others like the flip chart, the overhead projector, the video, tape recorders, the library, the computer, training manuals.
3.3.4 Constraints
There have been some difficulties experienced in training. The major ones are:
It is also to be noted that there is a disparity in the level of the learners. Some have high academic qualifications while others have not gone beyond basic secondary education. There is also as mentioned earlier the problem of untrained trainers. However, the most felt need is in the area of training infrastructure.
When one looks at the status of national expertise, one finds that there is some limited capacity in a few radio stations. This expertise is quite competent and well qualified. It has had quality training from good institutions and universities from within Africa and abroad. However, the number of women amongst this expertise is very low. They only constitute about 23% of the total. Such a situation needs to be improved.
While this national expertise appears strong in experience, intellect and professionalism it has not been prepared to train others. On the whole their training equipped them for classical radio, but not rural radio as such nor for training others.
To perform efficiently in rural radio, this expertise needs additional training in the areas of rural radio itself. There is also a need to train these people as trainers if they are to do their job well.
Almost all of the trainers working in the domain of rural radio did not receive any training as trainers. They nevertheless have a proven background in radio. This background is worth reinforcing by rural radio training. They need to be trained in rural radio first and then be made trainers themselves.
2.1 Needs in Rural Radio Training
2.2 Needs in Trainer Training
An analysis of expressed needs reveals that a good number of respondents should be trained in rural radio as well as in trainers of rural radio. The training of the trainers in rural radio should therefore cover two aspects: the training in rural radio on the one hand and on the other the training of the trainers. The training in rural radio should thus be exclusively centred on a programme of rural radio. This should be so on the assumption that all potential trainers identified have an appreciation of classical radio.
The objective of this training in rural radio is to allow trainers to apprehend the concept of rural radio, to develop their knowledge of the rural world, to master the different approaches of communication in a rural environment and to get some knowledge of the programme adapted to this environment.
As for the training of trainers, it should aim to develop in trainees an aptitude and andragogical reflexes that will make them know the different teaching methods and the principal teaching aids available. These trainees will also learn how to define training needs, to prepare modules and how to evaluate them.
3.1 Training Programme in Rural Radio
Programme for rural radio training will be divided into the following modules:
The rural radio
The specifications of social communication objectives
Field Investigation
Realization of programme
Rural sociology
Oral tradition and communication
Knowledge of the local or communal radio
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)
The administration of rural, local or community radio
The management of human resources for local, rural and community radio
Financial management in local, rural community radio
Elements of ethics and the rural presenter's / rural producer's deontology
The knowledge of the radio audience
Communication for development
3. 2 Trainer Programme
The following modules are recommended
The andragogy
The methods
The media
Assessment
The training needs
The planning of a training programme
The feedback and evaluation
The interaction
The modules of classes
The evaluation of the modules
Although the survey only covered 18 out of 21 countries, it still provides a good panoramic picture of the situation regarding rural radio in the countries of Central, Western, Eastern and Southern Africa. This situation is identical from one country to another. Rural radio is still not fully appreciated and understood. If people speak about it, they do so with very little knowledge and not from a professional point of view. It appears that rural radio is better known in Western and Central Africa than in the Eastern and Southern Africa countries. This is due to the work of CIERRO, which has been operating in the West and Central African region for some time.
From the present survey, it appears that out of 18 investigated countries, 14 have at least a training institution. Otherwise when we put all the countries together, there are a total of 41 institutions that are open to students from other nationalities. These have qualified and competent teachers who have trained in national and foreign universities. There are two types of training found in these institutions, namely long terms (lasting several years) and short terms (lasting for at least one week). However, very few of these institutions offer training in rural radio. Otherwise, most of them offer classical training in radio, which takes into account the rural world. Very rarely does one find classes that relate their content to rural communities, as is the case in some Eastern and Southern Africa institutions.
The only specialized school that is totally devoted to rural radio is the Inter-African Centre for Rural Radio Studies of Ouagadougou (CIERRO). The SADC Centre of Communication for Development in Zimbabwe is only beginning to develop modules on the subject.
It is also important to point out that out of the 18 countries, 14 indicated that they have both public and private radio stations. The others only have state owned ones. Of the 197 radio stations recorded, 43 are public and 154 are private ones. The latter group puts together community, religious and commercial radio. All these radio stations, whether public or private, consider themselves working in rural radio because they produce some of their programmes in national languages and as such, they claim to be very close to the rural environment. It is clear here that the notion of rural radio is badly perceived.
The radio broadcasts produced by these stations are of the same style from one radio station to another. They follow the same production style. They are either produced directly by the radio stations as past of the station mandate or by partners in development. These productions are broadcasted directly by the station's own transmitters. Their impact on listeners is measured using classical tools for doing so from one radio station to another and thus is dependent on the radio station means (financial, material and skills). While some of the radio stations have digital equipment, others still use obsolete reporting and production equipment in order to fulfil their mission.
The number of staff varies from station to station according to the policy of the station. Staff having a permanent position is more numerous than temporary ones. The private radio stations and community radio stations due to a policy of low recruitment tend to have staff that is very versatile. On the whole, these structures need training notably in three to four areas related directly either to the practice of radio or radio management.
Although there is a need for training, it is difficult to find private radio stations investing in it. On the other hand, one finds that in most national radio stations there is some expertise in aspects of rural radio. This expertise is already being used for training. Where it is not, it could be used if it was so wished by the station. Most of this expertise has had solid experience accumulated over the years. What it lacks is trainer's skills and knowledge of rural radio. They would need to undergo training in rural radio as well as to be trained as trainers. The survey on which this paper is based is the start of an attempt to meet this need.
This paper, like the survey is proposing a program of training. Specifically, it recommends:
