This study investigates the role of televised distance education in South Africa as an opportunity to expand the provision of formal education to large numbers of learners and how the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and the Department of Education the country fulfills its promise to expand education. Liberty Learning Channel uses materials developed by David Modlin and Real Lissoos of the Learning Channel Campus, in collaboration with William Smith, a visionary teacher and pioneer of televised distance education. This study will investigate whether televised distance education in South Africa is working and how successful it is in achieving its goals.
Firstly, there is the need for distance learning in South Africa. The country has an illiteracy rate of 15 percent and 14 percent among adult women and men, respectively (Population Reference Bureau Data Finder, 2000; UNFPA State ofWorld Population, 2003). Therefore, this study will explore the implications of the globalization of mass communication and new information technologies on television broadcast-based distance learning. What is the role of broadcast-based distance learning and the LibertyLearning Channel Program in strengthening national and regional identity, and correcting imbalances in access to educational opportunities?
How can distance education-based distance learning reach and benefit schools without basic infrastructure? What is the historical development of the Liberty Learning Channel Program and television-based distance education in South Africa?
Theoretical foundations of this study
Early television audience research and the more recent developments in television audience research
Is the program in any way relevant to the social reality of students and teachers? The video recorder also 'played an important destabilizing role in the measurability of television audiences. The encoding/decoding model emphasizes the audience's potential to respond actively and even argumentatively to media messages.
This interaction is a means by which children are engaged in the use of the intellectual tools of their society, such as language. In the present study, the specific dynamics of articulation involved were traced (i.e., the purpose of the program, how the program is marketed, and how Liberty Learning Channel attempts to monitor and obtain feedback on consumer activity). Important for the focus group interviews that the researcher conducted was to get an idea of what the 'everyday' lives of the students and teachers were like and how they fit watching Liberty Learning Channel program into their daily lives.
The researcher arbitrarily selected the above schools in each category based on the willingness of the inspector of schools and principals to participate in the project on specific dates. In-depth interviews were conducted to elicit the opinions of the presenters and partners in the production of Liberty Learning Channel Program.
CHAPTER TWO PART ONE
Review of literature and background information to the present study
Private Distance Education Colleges or Commercial Correspondence Colleges
The moratorium was lifted in mid-2002, although it provides for approval limits on the number of students to be enrolled (Fiona Bulman, telephone interview, April 5, 2004). According to Fiona Bulman, the enrollment cap for contact institutions is no more than 30,000 students (Fiona Bulman, telephone interview, April 5, 2004). Some of the contact institutions are as follows: . 1) Public Health Program at the University of the Western Cape. The University of Natal undertook to open a blended approach from 1997 that would provide flexible entry and exit points for both undergraduate and postgraduate students through the Open Learning Initiative. School leavers and persons already in the workplace who cannot complete full-time studies for three consecutive years. 44 From 1 January 2004, the University of Potchefstroom, the University of North West and Vista University's Sebong campus merged and the new institution is known as North West University (BuaNews, 2003). Distance education courses, which were offered by the Potchefstroom University of Christian Higher Education, are being offered more recently. (North West University.
The following programs are offered as follows: Bachelor of Education, Diploma of Higher Education, Bachelor of Arts and some occasional courses run by individual departments. The University of the Free State is also a member of Open. SACHED5 1) The program offers distance education courses from standards five to ten in four subjects which include: English Communication, Mathematics, Integrated Science and Integrated Social Studies. The SACRED Trust is engaged in the development of course materials, including printed materials, diagnostic tests, and audio tapes; and 2) Distance Educators and Administrators Training Programme, this program was established to provide training for educators and administrators for the ASECA program (South African Distance Education Policy Paper, 1996; SACHED52). They are intended to facilitate learning, assess students and assign grades or evaluate their work. The dialogue between student and teacher is an essential part of distance education materials.
Another device the writer can use is to underline or write in bold, difficult terminology or points they wish to emphasize. The use of boxes also highlights parts of the text that require the reader's special attention. Currently, the course enrolls 15 students from both the University of KwaZulu - Nataland University of Washington Bothell (UWB). Student enrollment is limited because this type of learning has proven to be too labor intensive to facilitate and assess. The instant connection of resource persons and easy access to resource materials in distance education enabled by communication technologies will help in learning from the expertise and experience of others. The various methods adopted by distance education institutions in the development, production and distribution of materials are readily available to others through database systems.
Audiences will interpret media messages in different ways, depending largely on their circumstances and position in society based on class, gender or ethnicity (Beng, 1994; Kishore, 1994; McQuail, 1994). The educational goal should be to help students be able to make choices and obtain knowledge from the media that they consider culturally appropriate and useful. There is compelling evidence that political support and government policy in education broadcasting is crucial for its long-term sustainability and scale-up.” (Dodds and Edirisingha,2000:104). 6For example, many of the Interactive Radio Instruction (IRl) projects failed because they were unable to gain political support to ensure national funding and integration into national educational structures as they attempted to transition from USAID-funded and expatriate-managed projects into national programmes. The South African Interactive Radio Instruction (IR!) project, which was largely nationalized under his leadership The Radiophonic Schools Program of the Acio n Cultural Popular (ACPO) in Colombia, after a sustained period of dramatic success, with support from both the church as the government, died after forty years, when the church handed over the politicians. turned against it (Fraser and Restrepo-Estrada, 1998). Two programs that still appear to have political support and have survived and grown to scale are the Ministry of Non-formal Education (DNFE).
10 On 16 June 1976, high school students in Soweto (the name given in 1963 to the collection of townships to the·Southwest of Johannesburg) began to protest for better education and the police responded with tear gas and live bullets. The day is commemorated today by a South African national holiday, Youth Day, which commemorates all those who lost their lives in the struggle against apartheid and Bantu education (an education that taught blacks that they were not equal to whites and equipped them with skills to serve their own people in homelands or to work in labor among Whites (Boddy-Evans, 2004).SABC Educational TV has a successful weekly magazine program for educators, Education Express, which promotes the professional development of support educators and is a platform to discuss educational issues (SABC Education, 2004). The program is supported by printed resource materials carried in newspapers and on the SABC Educational TV website. slang for "that's it". The series was designed to address the major challenges facing young people that make many South African schools dysfunctional (SABC, 1999).
Also evident in the excerpt above is the fact that Liberty Learning Channel is only in partnership with the Liberty Life Foundation. SABCjust provides the airspace, period, and the Department of Education and the South African Institute of Distance Education (SAIDE) are not partners with the Liberty LifeLearning Channel. Now we rely more and more on the brilliance and experts of SAIDA.[..] The relationship with the Ministry of Education is usually such that we [..]recognize their curricula, exam schedule [and] different Departments [..] the exam needs criteria.
