Focus on Education

Golden Kids Interview

SFCG audience surveys and other research have found that education is the number one priority for many of its listeners. To address this need, SFCG is partnering with Creative Associates on a distance education project, with SFCG responsible for the radio for teacher training component. Producing the radio program Let’s Learn Together, is a way to ensure that Liberian youth receive a quality education that serves as a source of peace and stability.

The radio show is produced in partnership with Creative Associates International and the Ministry of Education to train teachers by radio in rural Liberia. Every edition of Let’s Learn Together challenges both instructors and students to expand their repertoire of teaching methods and learning styles. An interactive presentation including quiz sections, a concluding model lesson, and listener feedback sessions combine to make a potent vehicle for teacher training via the airwaves in six Liberian counties.

SFCG is taking advantage of the widespread nature of radio and oral culture in the country, as well as its own radio networks and production expertise to push for youth engagement and educational advancement.  The program grows out of the Ministry of Education’s Accelerated Learning Program (ALP), which targets youth and children who missed out on education during the war to be taught twice as fast as standard schoolchildren.  Let’s Learn Together is contributing to this effort by stimulating teachers, students of all ages, and other community members to explore innovative and effective methods of instruction like group work, questioning, and role-playing.  The techniques are quizzed and then discussed by SFCG Presenter and secondary school principal Estella Miller and Master Trainer Cora Wallace.  The methods are put into practice by a model teacher in the classroom – one such lesson is included in each edition of the program, which airs weekly on 15 radio stations and reaches over 200 ALP schools.  The program also includes a service learning component that goes beyond radio learning to encourage tangible actions that help communities.