**6.2 Growth in numbers of participating schools, teachers and learners**

Priority was initially placed on maintaining project visibility and credibility among the core constituency of radio learning programme teachers with whom the programme had previously had contact (ie teachers in schools which were already using the English in Action broadcasts for daily additional language teaching). What was unforeseen was that beside the need to focus on existing schools, there would be a continuous pressure and rising demands from teachers in other non-OLSET schools to be included in the programme. This was the case in each of the eight provinces in which the radio learning programme was working and is reflected in the exponential growth in teacher and pupil numbers refelected in Table Three below.


Table 3. Growth in Teacher and Pupil Numbers in the Radio Learning Programme over the Period 1993 – 2000

There were thus a number of tensions in relation to the scale on which the programme was implemented, versus the increasing demand for the programme's services in the schools, These tensions related to the reality that the budget, though generous at the outset, was not sufficient to meet the increasing demands for the project's services

In the circumstances, all available financial resources were put into the project's distance education intervention, with priority being placed on supporting schools in poor communities. One effect of this was that there were minimal resources available for

development, materials production, teacher training, and independent formative and summative evaluations. Capacity to reach large numbers of schools and teachers was,

The 1996 termination of USAID support for radio learning in South Africa negatively impacted the programme's organizational capacity through staff turnover. As Creekmore (2010) suggests, this tension was perhaps inevitable, given the nature of projects as temporary organisations (Turner & Muller, 2003) linked to donor practices of periodic reassessment and prioritization of country strategy and attendant programme support.

After the USAID grant came to an end in 1996, the programme was fortunate in obtaining a grant from the Norwegian Embassy, which provided assistance to the programme through the NORAD basic education support programme. The budget was a generous one and linked to the scale that the programme was operating at the time. It provided for a degree of restaffing, as well as a modest expansion of radio learning programme services to schools.

Priority was initially placed on maintaining project visibility and credibility among the core constituency of radio learning programme teachers with whom the programme had previously had contact (ie teachers in schools which were already using the English in Action broadcasts for daily additional language teaching). What was unforeseen was that beside the need to focus on existing schools, there would be a continuous pressure and rising demands from teachers in other non-OLSET schools to be included in the programme. This was the case in each of the eight provinces in which the radio learning programme was working and is reflected in the exponential growth in teacher and pupil numbers refelected

**Year Teachers Pupils**  319 14 249 995 42747 1440 72 000 2496 125 000 4540 227 000 4297 301 124 6257 312 000 6240 325 000 Table 3. Growth in Teacher and Pupil Numbers in the Radio Learning Programme over the

There were thus a number of tensions in relation to the scale on which the programme was implemented, versus the increasing demand for the programme's services in the schools, These tensions related to the reality that the budget, though generous at the outset, was not

In the circumstances, all available financial resources were put into the project's distance education intervention, with priority being placed on supporting schools in poor communities. One effect of this was that there were minimal resources available for

sufficient to meet the increasing demands for the project's services

**6.2 Growth in numbers of participating schools, teachers and learners**

in Table Three below.

Period 1993 – 2000

however, limited by funding, which was an ongoing constraint.

ensuring the ongoing evaluation process central to content development and training. The project evaluation continued, albeit on a reduced scale, in the absence of resources. The internal evaluation function was performed on an ongoing basis through the interest of the consultants involved, on the basis of goodwill.

Thus, despite generous support from the international community, project sustainability remained tenuous over the period from 1995 to the end of 2000. There were also tensions in implementation which characterized OLSET's work during the five year period of Norwegian support. Increased numbers implied constrained financial resources. This, in turn, meant reduced external implementation. At the same time, there was a need for internal reorganization, as well as content and materials revision consistent with the demands of the Outcomes Based curriculum.
