Radio correspondence education in Kenya

Thus concludes this impact evaluation of the project, which trained 5,000 teachers during the 4 years of A.I.D. involvement and 7,000 thereafter, and allowed Kenyans to pursue educational certification without the personnel or system costs of formal schooling, a method of great potential value to developing countries, and applicable in many fields. Unfortunately, the resulting numerous teacher promotions and salary increases, coupled with the hiring of some 5,000 new teachers annually, strained Kenya's education budget and led in 1974 to the government's abandoning the automatic promotion policy which had motivated many teachers to join the program. Enrollments fell drastically, and although the project-created Correspondence Course Unit (CCU) at the University of Nairobi survived as an institution, its operations and client services deteriorated. In an effort to increase enrollment, the CCU turned to commercial courses which were not in keeping with long-range socially sound objectives. Nonetheless, the CCU has demonstrated its resilience and has been selected to provide new and significant distance teaching services, including programs in adult literacy, primary teacher updating, and primary education for nomadic peoples. The project taught that distance teaching requires well-organized field support in close touch with the target population; strong financial incentives for learners to invest time and money in courses; a reliable postal system; national radio transmission reaching most potential clients; a flexible institutional base with a corps of well-trained specialists; and a willingness to equitably distribute educational benefits to rural and disadvantaged groups. (Educators should remember, however, the limitations of distance teaching for technical subjects.) Other lessons learned are that A.I.D. Missions should keep in touch with assisted institutions after project completion, and that informal exchanges of information among developing countries about the distance teaching method can be extremely valuable.