Training Needs For Trainers in the Field of Rural Radio in Africa

From the abstract

The paper has been developed out of a survey on the needs of the Trainers in Rural Radio conducted by the Inter-African Centre for Rural Radio Studies of Ouagadougou (CIERRO) and the Southern African Development Community - Centre of Communication for Development (SADC).

The paper looks at the status of training in Rural Radio in Africa. It argues that while there are some radio stations claiming to engage in rural radio, actually they are not set up as such. Their claims often spring from the fact that they broadcast in the local language and that they carry some developmental messages.

The paper goes on to demonstrate that so far (except for CIERRO) there are no formal training institutions on the continent specialising in Rural Radio. Just as this is the case, there are not many trainers in this domain of radio work.

The paper comes up with suggestions for improving this scenario. These suggestions have been based on expressed needs by informants who responded to questionnaires of the survey.

This paper, like the survey is proposing a programme of training. Specifically, it recommends:

• Create training institutions in the investigated countries and encourage them to make rural radio training a major part of their communication training programmes.
• As a model programme, CIERRO could organise formal training classes for trainers in rural radio.
• Organise workshops on rural radio for potential trainers of the rural radio stations surveyed in order to prepare them to assume training of other staff in their radio stations.
• Provide trainers with pedagogical tools and equipment.
• Encourage those responsible for radio stations to create structures that include a training component within their organisations.
• Directors of radio stations prepare long term training plans (covering two to three years) in advance.
• Provide training to female trainers in their radio stations.
• Training programmes in rural radio should be open to not only radio stations, but also to potential users of rural radio such as non-governmental development organizations and government ministries working in development.
• CIERRO could expand its outreach more visibly in the Eastern and Southern Africa region through collaboration with the SADC Centre of Communication for Development in Zimbabwe.
• Training in rural radio should, as much as possible, lead to recognised qualifications.