How Is Radio Helping to Improve Girls' Education in South Sudan?

"Midline research found that listeners of the radio programme Our School – which seeks to raise awareness of the benefits of education and tackle associated barriers – had more knowledge of South Sudan’s education system, had been more involved in education, and had budgeted for and discussed education with girls or daughters more than non-listeners."

This brief shares the research findings of a midline study to assess the impact of Our School, a series of 15-minute-long radio magazine programmes broadcast in South Sudan that sought to raise awareness of the benefits of education and tackle associated barriers to education, especially for girls.

The radio show forms part of the Girls Education South Sudan (GESS) project, a consortium-based five-year-long initiative (2013-2018) of the Government of the Republic of South Sudan, designed to transform the lives of a generation of children in the country - especially girls - through education. The radio component, as well as other supporting communication activities, of the project is being implemented by BBC Media Action with local broadcasting partners. The media and communication activities sought to improve awareness of the benefits of education and tackle barriers such as social norms. Since April 2014, Our School has been broadcast (in nine languages) across South Sudan, reaching girls, their parents, community leaders, and teachers. Accompanying the radio programmes, BBC Media Action also delivered a range of outreach/community mobilisation activities, such as bringing Our School to ‘media-dark’ areas - those without radio networks - and airing the show at listening clubs and community dialogue sessions (See Related Summary below for more information).

The study to assess the radio programme’s impact included a nationwide quantitative survey of 3,169 adults (aged 15 and above) from the former 10 states of South Sudan, and several pieces of qualitative research - focus group discussions with audiences, as well as interviews with participants of the community mobilisation activities. It conducted regression analysis to compare key outcomes (such as discussion of education issues) between those exposed and unexposed to Our School, while controlling for various factors - confounders - that might have affected the results (such as age or income).

The brief shares the results related to reach of the programme; improvement of knowledge related to girls' education; impact on budgeting behaviour for schooling; increased discussion of and participation in education-related activities; and school attendance of girls.

The following are just a few of the key findings:

• Listenership of Our School increased from 0.9 million in 2014 to approximately 2 million in 2016. Of those, 80% listened to at least every other episode (i.e., regularly)
• Listeners reported having gained knowledge from Our School, including knowing: how parents/communities can support girls (95%), why it is important for girls to stay in school (92%), how to register a child at school (90%), how girls receive cash transfers (89%), and how to budget for girls' education (88%)
• Regular listeners were 1.4 times more likely than non-listeners to have saved money or sold something to help pay for uniforms or books. This is positive, as Our School specifically sought to address the issue of better budgeting, because school fees is still the most mentioned reason for boys and girls dropping out of school.
• Regular listeners were, on average, twice as likely as non-listeners to frequently discuss education with their daughters/girls.
• The South Sudan School Attendance Monitoring System shows that girls’ enrolment has increased year-on-year since the start of the GESS project.

Despite these successes, the report does make the point that men continue to participate more than women and have higher levels of awareness around GESS initiatives (such as cash transfers and capitation grants that support girls’ education). As such, Our School should therefore continue to work to address the differences in levels of knowledge and practice between men and women.