Radio lessons for students and teachers in Malawi

With 50% of students dropping out by fifth grade, overcrowded classrooms, and a lack of training and resources for teachers, the government of Malawi decided to try a new approach.

It introduced an innovative national curriculum, which today is rapidly gaining in popularity among teachers and students alike.

Called Primary Curriculum Assessment Reform (PCAR), the curriculum was initially met with some resistance.

Teachers lacked training and were unfamiliar with the concept of more active, student-focused classrooms. But thanks to radio broadcasts developed by EDC, more teachers and students are now embracing PCAR.

“In Malawi, there are schools, teachers, and a functioning ministry, so instead of building a system, we are complimenting what is already there,” says EDC’s Simon Richmond.

The radio broadcasts, which are called Tikwere! (“let’s climb” in Chichewa, one of Malawi’s national languages) are based on PCAR and include interactive activities such as songs, games, and group work to engage students and teachers.

“In Malawi’s second major language ‘Tikwere’ also means ‘to pass’ as in to pass an exam. We settled on the name because it had a double positive meaning in different languages,” says Richmond.

Tikwere! broadcasts daily 30-minute lessons on literacy, numeracy, English, and life skills. The broadcasts reach 800,000 students and 8,000 teachers in 5,300 schools across the country.

In addition to helping popularise PCAR, Tikwere! aims to improve learner achievement, increase school enrollment, and close achievement gaps for girls and for those who live in remote areas.

As Olive Masanza, deputy minister of education, told Voice of America, “With the coming of this radio programme I think Malawi will benefit. In the classroom you [are] only able to teach a hundred children but on the radio you are teaching millions.”

Although the programme has only been on the air since January 2008, it has already begun to produce positive results. There has been an increase in attendance among students, and a number of older students are repeating the lower grades in order to receive the benefits of the radio lessons.

“For teachers, a light comes on as they realize PCAR is not that hard to teach, and they are very quickly adopting the program into their classrooms,” says Richmond. “They thank us for making their jobs easier and for giving them better ideas for how to teach a concept.”

This three-year project received funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development.