Too many people worldwide are living in substandard conditions. Half the world’s population is living on less than two dollars a day. From a moral and humanitarian standpoint, this is utterly unacceptable. Yet most of us are indifferent and complacent. We stand by as millions die each year, just because they are too poor to stay alive. Our policy leaders’ inattention and neglect lull us into believing that there is nothing more we can do.

Insufficient education is one of the main reasons for the suffering in the developing world. This can trap people for generations in a cycle of poverty. Most of the nearly two billion children in the developing world do not finish school. One-third of these children do not complete fifth grade, and many have no schooling at all.

No country has ever reached sustained economic growth without coming close to universal primary education for boys and girls. No other investment has so much potential to lift communities out of poverty.

Education for adults is even more inadequate. Millions of adults need training in health care, agriculture and sanitation, as well as knowledge about the basic services and infrastructure needed in rural communities. However, they lack access to schools, qualified teachers and/or trainers. Even when there are teachers, they often lack lessons and curriculum for critical topics like reproductive health and family planning. One result of this particular education void in many developing countries is the continued spread of sexually-transmitted disease and illness and an alarming death rate of adult populations. Because of this, many children become orphans. Countless more children die from lack of health services and education.

The information age has not arrived on a global scale. The Internet revolution has yet to reach billions of the world’s poor. Most of these lack access to computers and live far away from the Internet. Many are illiterate and cannot understand even a simple Web page.

Yet, there is hope for the poor.

The information revolution can indeed reach the barely reachable. It can change their lives. For those trapped in poverty, the most valuable data on the Internet may not be Web pages, but rather sounds and images, because audio-visual files can educate even the illiterate.

IRI: The Established Standard

Since the 1970s, educational radio has provided great benefits to people trapped in poverty. Interactive Radio Instruction (IRI) uses interactive lessons delivered through either radio broadcast or audio cassette. An “audio” teacher directs the lessons, while classroom teachers serve as facilitators. The use of IRI in developing countries worldwide has improved the quality of education across a range of school subjects, and IRI has also served as a form of teacher development. Multiple studies of IRI consistently have shown high learning gains, decreased equity gaps and cost-effectiveness. Twenty-three years after IRI’s initial launch, several major IRI projects continue to operate successfully. While there have been various updates to IRI over the years, its basic structure and methodology remain largely unaltered. Projects around the world continue to use IRI*.

Click here is listen to an example of IRI provided by the International Education System (a division of EDC).

As a result of the IRI program, development agencies have distributed hundreds of thousands of radios to people in the Developing Countries. Non-government organizations, working with private industry partners, have solved the problem of powering these radios in distant villages, by distributing solar-powered and hand-cranked radios. Millions of students in countries like Haiti, Somalia, Honduras, Zambia, Colombia and India have learned math from teachers or facilitators who use radios to tune into educational broadcast lessons. Now these lessons arrive via the Internet as audio and video files.

*Interactive Radio Instruction: Twenty-Three Years of Improving Educational Quality. By Andrea Bosch A publication of the World Bank Human Development Network Education Group – Education and Technology Team 1997.

Since the 1970’s, educational radio and television have provided great benefits to people trapped in poverty. Programs like Interactive Radio Instruction (IRI), Distance Education, Multi-channel Learning and Educational TV are four prime examples using audiovisual aides. Interactive Radio Instruction (IRI) is defined as the use of interactive lessons delivered through either radio broadcast or audiocassette. An “audio” teacher directs the lessons while classroom teachers serve as facilitators. IRI has been used in developing countries worldwide to improve the quality of education across a range of school subjects and to serve as a form of teacher development. Multiple studies of IRI consistently have shown high learning gains, decreased equity gaps, and cost-effectiveness.

Twenty-three years after their initial launch, several major IRI projects continue to operate successfully. While over the years IRI has been updated in various ways, its basic structure and methodology remain largely unaltered. IRI continues to be used in projects around the world. As a result of the IRI program, development agencies have distributed hundreds of thousands of radios to people in the third world. Non-government organizations, working with private industry partners have solved the problem of powering these radios, in distant villages, by creating solar powered and hand cranked radios. Millions of students in countries like Haiti, Somalia, Colombia and India have learned math from teachers or facilitators using radios to tune into educational broadcast lessons. Now these lessons are being transmitted via the Internet as audio and video files.

PMPs: The New Portable Solution

In the developed nations, the most popular way to play audio and video files is via portable media players (PMPs). Since 2001, the iPod has created and popularized the use of PMPs as entertainment devices for listening to one’s favorite music. As PMPs were designed for the “personal audio” category, their main use is to entertain one person at a time via a set of headphones.

However, PMPs can serve a much broader purpose: as a valuable portable educational tool that enables users to listen to podcasts (pre-recorded audio) or to watch vidcasts (pre-recorded video). Popularized in 2005, a podcast is like a radio program produced for a very narrow audience, much smaller groups than those currently using radio. Users can download an educational podcast by transferring files to PMPs and then, in turn, delivering them to a neighborhood, village or town. Using portable radio-sized electronic speakers connected to a PMP, a classroom group of 40 can easily benefit from listening to a podcast. With a television set connected to a PMP, the same group can benefit from watching a vidcast (video podcast).

With loudspeakers or transmitters to broadcast the radio programs over mid-sized and tiny geographic areas, portable media players also have the potential to educate and train even larger groups of people via a podcast at the same time.

Interactive Radio Instruction Links

The leading provider of IRI is the International Education Systems Division of Education Development Center

Freeplay Foundation

Interview with the Founder of Freeplay Foundation

Vadaphone foundation