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, many 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.

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.

Interactive Radio Instruction Links

• International Education Systems Division of Education Development Center (EDC) -- The leading IRR program, content and equipment provider in the world
  • Select from a menu of IRR content by International Development Division (A division of Education Development Center -- EDC)
    
• Freeplay Foundation -- Self powered technology for the developing world, including the first radio developed specifically for humanitarian use
  • Interview with the Founder of Freeplay Foundation
• Africa’s children struggle for education
• Distance Education -- Paper on IRR as a distance learning tool
• Zambia IRI -- News story
• IES/EDC Zambia IRI video clip -- Video clip on using iPods and training to deliver audio content to learners in developing nations
• Haiti IRI -

 A/V Instruction Compared to IRI

Although IRI is still a valuable tool for certain types of instruction, tutored audio-visual instruction (TAVI) has great potential improve on the IRI approach for the versatility of content it allows and the flexibility it provides to teachers. It is really no more difficult to use. It essentially requires the same amount of training and skill to use play, pause and menu buttons as it does to tune a radio frequency.

TAVI is superior to IRI because it provides greater control by the instructors on the ground while still guiding them in the content of the lessons.

When using IRI broadcast radio programming, for example, thousands or tens of thousands of students must all listen to the same lesson synchronously; at the time when the lesson is scheduled to broadcast. With TAVI, the teacher controls the lesson schedule.

This also gives the teacher or the facilitator the power to pace the learning. They have the ability to pause the lesson at their command. If the attendees are disruptive or confused, the lesson is paused. Short portions of the lesson can be replayed to fine-tune the learning. If the listeners are learning quickly, the  instructors do not need to wait for a future radio broadcast. They can move ahead to the next lesson. They can also go back and review previous lessons.

Teacher preparation and performance can also benefit because the teacher can listen to the lesson prior to presenting it to the class. When teachers are prepared, they arrive at class with more confidence and greater capability. Quality is better as well, as the sound quality of digital players is always perfect, with no interference from static, and the instructors are not preoccupied with fine tuning a radio dial.