The introduction of interactive radio instruction (RADECO) to the remote areas of the Dominican Republic provided a valuable education alternative to children not able to attend formal schools. Those children needed to work in the fields with their parents during the day could attend RADECO evening sessions, families avoided the costs of sending their children to formal schools, and communities could provide instruction to children despite the lack of adequately trained teachers. The high frequency of student interaction, the requirement for community involvement, and the constant improvements in the curriculum all supported by the project were extremely beneficial in assuring a functional basic education for the children of the Dominican Republic.

Benefits for Remote Areas

The required technology for the project was quite inexpensive. The benefits for remote areas such as the Dominican Republic in terms of efficiency, cost, and ease of adaptation include the following:

• classrooms only need a single radio and a few materials;
• students do not require expensive textbooks;
• classes do not need sophisticated facilities; and
• the project provides all clipboards, pencils, worksheets, and blackboards for the classes.

The radio as an instruction aid for remote communities is effective in that it can reach vast geographical areas that may be difficult for visiting teachers and intensive programs to reach. Because they live in such far-removed, underdeveloped areas, the children of these villages would otherwise have had no hope of receiving an education. Finally, since radio instruction is needed for a number of communities lacking basic education, the lessons and standard curriculum can be adapted easily for use anywhere.

Learning with Interactive Radio

The radio programs used in RADECO classes demanded a great deal of student interaction during the diverse 3 to 5 minute lesson segments; the broadcasts relied on worksheets, games, oral responses, and songs to communicate material. Because of the demand, students frequently interacted with radio characters instead of being passive recipients of the lessons. By breaking up the lessons into segments, the students would be more likely to remain interested and involved, and the effectiveness of different learning approaches could be explored. The reinforcement of answers that the radio teachers provided also was important in assuring that the students would retain learned information well after the lessons.

Overall, the research and implementation of interactive radio instruction in the Dominican Republic and, more recently, in other countries has helped to introduce more effective and more sophisticated radio programs and curricula; the conversation model, where the radio teacher asked questions and required a single, correct answer to be recited in unison by the class, has since been adapted to include the following:

• soap opera and adventure drama,
• teacher training through modeling and guidance,
• story and open-ended discussion, and
• call-in and talk shows.

Radio Education Compared With Formal Schooling

The instruction provided by the RADECO classes has been proven to be a satisfactory and effective basic education. In comparisons with formal school students, it was found that in one hour of radio instruction, RADECO students learned roughly the same content that formal school students learned in 3 to 4 hours of instruction. Formal school students were not found to be at an academic advantage to radio students throughout the duration of the project.

Interactive Radio Instruction in Other Countries

The use of interactive radio instruction to reach remote, underdeveloped areas has spread to a number of countries since the RADECO Project. Interactive radio instruction has been implemented to teach the following courses in the countries listed:

• basic education for adult, out-of-school learners: Honduras (1992);
• ESL (English as a Second Language): Kenya (1980), Lesotho, South Africa, Pakistan, and Bangladesh;
• mathematics: the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Bolivia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Thailand;
• Spanish: the Dominican Republic, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala (1990s);
• science: Papua New Guinea (1980s);
• environmental education: Costa Rica (1991);
• health: Bolivia (1987); and
• teacher training: Nepal (1980s).

For another example of how radio technology has been used to spread basic education in remote areas, take a look at the Gobi Women's Project, a nonformal distance education project for nomadic women of Mongolia, launched in 1992.

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