**8. Drawing the threads together: What are the lessons learned and what can other projects take forward?**

As Creekmore (2010) has suggested, projects are transient, and have "a beginning and end" (Turner & Muller, 2003, 1). In the South African Radio Learning Programme, sustainability remained a major tension over its entire life of the programme. The beginning was filled with optimism, while the end of the programme's work was unfortunate, but perhaps inevitable in the context of the funding crisis affecting the work of NGO's internationally.

The South African Radio Learning Programme was fortunate in attracting generous international donor support over a period of seventeen years. There were many areas in which the programme's implementation was limited and the support provided to schools and teachers less than perfect. On the basis of evidence from ongoing evaluation (Potter and Naidoo, 2009a; 2009b), it cannot be claimed that the programme's approach was the ultimate, nor that its work was ideal. Nevertheless, it can be claimed that the South African Radio Learning Programme had wide-scale influence over a period of seventeen years, and played a positive role in improving quality of teaching in large numbers of schools at lower primary school level. It also contributed to increased self-efficacy of teachers in terms of improving their ability to implement outcomes-based education in their classrooms.

On the product level, the programme's influence can be estimated in terms of the scale of the programme's outreach. As at the end of December 2009), over ten million learners in approximately 10% of all South African primary schools had been involved in the South African Radio Learning Programme's interactive radio lessons in the foundation phase of primary school, over a seventeen year period. From the programme's inception at the beginning of 1992 to 2000 the programme grew rapidly. Over period 2001 to end 2009 while the programme was supported at scale, there were an estimated 40 000 primary teachers and 1.3 million learners across nine provinces who utilised the programme's materials annually.

On the process level, the influence of the South African Radio Learning Programme on teachers and schools is more difficult to estimate, for the reason that our data suggest that, despite support and endorsement from educational officials in all nine provinces, there were wide-scale variations in the way in which the programme was implemented at classroom level. It is clear from our data that the teacher and pupil support curricula developed by the

Teacher Development Through Distance Education:

2009.

of the programme's life.

achieved.

level across the South African education system.

Contrasting Visions of Radio Learning in South African Primary Schools 85

South Africa who utilised the programme's materials during its final year of operation in

Our data would suggest that both the product and process levels of the curriculum were successfully developed and implemented post 1994, in a large number of classrooms. With DfID funding, the programme expanded to implementation across all nine provinces, and in 11% of all South African schools. The programme's implementation over the final five year funding period was based on a model in which programme implementation was tied to use of participatory evaluation methods in providing in-service training to teachers at school and classroom levels. Our data would suggest that this approach had great potential. Our data would also suggest clear longitudinal indications of advocacy on the part of teachers, principals and educational officials. This evidence was tapped through interviews, questionnaires and focus groups, and was consistent over the entire seventeen year period

In terms of use of radio as a way of reaching large numbers of teachers and schools, we have highlighted in this chapter clear longitudinal evidence of perceptions of the value of the curriculum materials, and of the benefit of the in-service training and support provided by the programme at school and classroom levels. However, sustainability remained a major problem and an unresolved issue in the programme. The South African Radio Learning Programme ceased its operation after seventeen years of implementation on a national level, at a time when it had achieved the advocacy of all nine provincial departments of education. In terms of lessons learned, the relevance of the programme's work can be gauged not only from the extent of its outreach, but also from the endorsement of all nine provincial education departments across South Africa. Based on the advocacy of teachers, principals, and educational officials, the first level of institutionalization of the programme's work was achieved, involving the departmental and ministerial endorsement of the in-service involvement of large numbers of teachers in the programme's teacher support group activities and workshops, as well as the use of the programme's learner support materials by teachers as an integral part of their classroom teaching. Nevertheless, despite a memorandum of understanding from the Ministry of Education indicating the intention to continue the programme's work in five hundred primary schools, the second level of institutionalisation involving financial support from the educational authorities was not

On the teaching and learning level, the evidence we have presented in this chapter would thus support the research on school development indicating the importance of developing support and advocacy among multiple educational stakeholders (Fullan, 1982; Fullan & Stiegelbauer, 1992; Hargreaves, 1992; Hargreaves & Fullan, 1992). It would also support the resurgence of interest in radio learning and its potential in teacher development, particularly in developing countries (Bosch, 1997; 2001; Perraton, 2000; Perraton, Robinson & Creed, 2001; 2007; Robinson & Latchem, 2003). On the sustainability level, what is clear from our data is that the discontinuation of the South African Radio Learning Programme's work at the end of 2009 left a number of gaps in in-service training of teachers at primary school

It is our hope that the South African ministry of education and provincial education departments will move to address these needs in the future. It is also our hope that other

programme were well tested in the field, having been developed, implemented and evaluated in the classrooms of large numbers of teachers.

What other projects can take forward is the evidence of positive response from teachers in large numbers of schools and classrooms to the provision of in-service training and classroom-based support by the project team. There was consistent evidence from our data that this was perceived to be beneficial, for the reason that the programme's model of open learning, though based on limited material support to schools, nevertheless addressed a number of needs, and provided the type of material and in-service training support which was not provided by the education system. A high level of advocacy for the programme's approach thus developed among teachers.

In schools and classrooms, our data also indicate that the influence of the programme on teacher practices took place not only in the half hour daily interactive radio lessons beamed nationally by the SABC, but also in the use of its materials for teaching English across the curriculum. In many classrooms, in addition, there was adoption by teachers of a focus on the type of classroom-based evaluation of teaching practices advocated by the programme over its seventeen year life (Potter, Chand, Naidoo and Friend, 2007; Potter and Naidoo, 2007; 2009a; 2009b; 2010). On the basis of perceived value and relevance, the programme was also endorsed by the principals at school level (Silva, 2008), those educational officials tasked with providing in-service training to teachers at provincial level (Potter & Naidoo, 2010), and by the provincial and national educational authorities.
