Plasma Television Teachers - : When A Different Reality Takes Over African Education
Plasma Television Teachers - : When A Different Reality Takes Over African Education
Plasma Television Teachers - : When A Different Reality Takes Over African Education
in neo-liberal times
I have been a National Tutor for a Masters course for Ethiopian teacher
educators during the last two years. This course followed a Critical
Practitioner Inquiry (CPI) approach that implies contextual analysis of
education. Therefore, in the spirit of CPI, I carried out the following
analysis not because of external demands but out of pure educational
interest.
Based on a document of the Government of the Federal Democratic
Republic of Ethiopia (GFDRE 1994) document that discusses the education
and training policy of Ethiopia, the Ministry of Education in Addis Ababa,
has formulated two other documents that deal with the implementation
strategy of this policy. These are referred to as the Education Sector
Development Programs I and II (MoE, 1999 and 2002, respectively). During
the implementation process another document authored by the Ministry of
Education appeared with the title Teachers’ Education Systems Overhaul
(TESO) (MoE 19951) that became pivotal in the development of high school
and university curricula at the Ministry, thus transforming the education
system of the country into a completely and unprecedented new method of
education delivery. This latter document calls for a complete student-
centered method of education in all Ethiopian government schools and
universities. As a result, there have been changes in curricula at all levels.
1
This is according to the Ethiopian calendar; it is equivalent to the period between
September 2002 to August 2003.
67
Critical Educational Visions and Practices
in neo-liberal times
High school education has been split into two years of general education in
two streams, namely, science and social science, which are offered in
Grades 9 and 10. Before joining higher education institutes, students in
Grades 11 and 12 are streamed into preparatory and vocational classes (also
known as technical and vocational education and training activities, TVET).
Students in the science and social science courses will be prepared to join
the academic streams of the universities, while those in the TVET course
will join the work force of the country.
Students in Grades 9 and 10 and those of the preparatory streams are
offered lessons entirely through a new approach that is carried out through
the use of plasma televisions (TVs). The students receive uniform lessons at
the same time throughout the country via satellite transmissions. These
transmissions come directly from the Republic of South Africa, or are
prepared in the Republic of South Africa and transported on CDs to a
central station in Addis Ababa, namely, the Ethiopian Educational Media
Agency, from where they are transmitted via satellite connections. The
lessons transmitted2 include the natural sciences (biology, chemistry,
physics), mathematics, English and civics. It was at such a turning point in
the Ethiopian education system that I visited a local Senior Secondary
School on two occasions, specifically, on 29 December 2004 and 05 January
2005.
2
The social sciences (history, geography, pedagogy, etc.) are not offered in plasma
TV lessons.
68
Critical Educational Visions and Practices
in neo-liberal times
69
Critical Educational Visions and Practices
in neo-liberal times
70
Critical Educational Visions and Practices
in neo-liberal times
He meant that on 27th and 28th of December 2004 (Monday and Tuesday)
there was no satellite connection, and he had to do something out of the
curriculum to keep the students busy. In fact, he was not sure if there would
be a satellite connection on this day, either. So we had to wait with
excitement as to what was going to happen. I was not sure about which
lesson he was prepared to discuss with his students.
Along with about 50 students in Grade 11, the teacher and I waited for
the lesson to start. In the 5 minutes between 8:00 and 8:05 the teacher was
expected to introduce what the day’s lesson was going to be about. He could
not do that because he was not sure where the lesson would start, as
described above. At exactly at 8:05 a.m. the lesson started with a new topic
on “Blood groups: Multiple alleles”.
The teacher sat down as I did and listened. The students took out their
books to write down some notes. A white lady instructor was on the TV
with a perfect English accent. As the lesson started, four latecomers came
in, having succeeded to negotiate their way in with the gatekeeper. Among
them there was one handicapped male student who could not walk properly
as he had some sort of deformity on the right foot. There was some
grumbling in the class until the latecomers settled down.
I was both attending the lesson and watching the students, trying to
observe their reactions as much as I could. Some started by writing notes.
Some soon gave up and just sat there watching and listening. There was a
good number of them who had just sat there watching with their elbows on
their desk, supporting their chins with the palm(s) of one hand or two. The
faces I saw looked troubled. It seemed to be impossible to know or even
guess who was making the best use of the time.
The lesson I watched was entirely lecture-based; the instructor on the
screen suggested that students copy some sentences and went on lecturing.
71
Critical Educational Visions and Practices
in neo-liberal times
72
Critical Educational Visions and Practices
in neo-liberal times
went on discussing cell anatomy of prokaryote and eukaryote cells and how
proteins are synthesized. In between she asked the students to copy some
notes and even asked them to copy down a three-dimensional color diagram
of a ribosome, for which she gave them 90 seconds. The reaction of the
students was as I have described the previous class. They tried to follow the
lesson, stopped when they could not work as fast as the program, and finally
got confused about whether they should copy the notes the teacher was
writing on the blackboard or those on the TV. As one might guess, some
students totally gave up taking notes and started watching what was
happening in the class in general. This time there were no latecomers, as it
was already too late (9:30 a.m.) for letting students into the school
compound. The method of teaching on the TV was again entirely lecture-
based, and some of the phrases used by the lady towards the end of the
lesson were noteworthy.
As the lady TV instructor was summarizing the day’s lesson, she was
saying:
“Remember I told you…”
“You have now completed…”
“You have also looked at…” (emphases mine)
I began to wonder, what happens if students did not get what she was
saying? Is that the boundary of responsibility sharing? Is it up to the
students to be responsible from this point on, as the teacher has no role in
the lesson delivery?
This class went on as programmed and the teacher had his notes on the
blackboard to summarize the high-tech lesson in the last five minutes. As
usual he started in English and finished in Oromifa. During this session the
teacher had covered only 10% of the class hour, which is 50 minutes long.
Students had neither answered nor asked questions nor made any sort of
general comments. As the bell ended the session, he asked students if they
had questions. There were none and we left the class.
73
Critical Educational Visions and Practices
in neo-liberal times
74
Critical Educational Visions and Practices
in neo-liberal times
suddenly rushed into a seat and the students and I were caught by surprise.
The class went into sudden silence.
The man, who did not specify who he was, started speaking in
English. He said he was one of the delegates from the Ministry of Education
and he wanted to collect feedback on the entire operation of the preparatory
program3.
Speaking in English, he said, “The stakeholders of this program are
students, teachers, parents and the government. So we were sent here to
collect your views on the preparatory program by using questionnaires and
interviews. Now I want you to select ten students, four females and six
males from this class. I also want another five students to give me the names
of their parents who will fill out the questionnaires and be interviewed by us
like the selected students. Remember,” he warned, “that the five parents
should be living in Alemaya town so that they can either come here to the
school for the feedback or we can go to their work places”.
The students kept completely quiet. I was not sure if they understood
everything that he was saying. He repeated his request. Again there was no
response. I was quietly observing what was going on, as I was not sure
about what was happening. At this moment I knew then where the teacher
had been, and what he was doing when we began the TV lesson.
Slowly the students started to talk with each other in the regional
language. I could not hear properly or understand what they were saying. I
can only assume that they were asking each other what it was all about.
Suddenly one boy spoke up in Oromifa. Then the guest started to explain
things in Oromifa. Students again kept quiet contemplating what they were
supposed to do. He said in English that he wanted to have the names and
they should start to suggest names. No names came up. Everybody got
restless. He seemed to be in a hurry to get all of this done in the shortest
possible time. He started requesting some students to suggest names. No
reaction again. He waited for a while. Nothing happened. At the end he
started to go around asking for volunteers. All of those who were requested
declined to give their names. He finally resorted to identifying students by
3
The lessons offered on plasma TVs for Grades 11 and 12 are meant to prepare
them to join higher education institutes.
75
Critical Educational Visions and Practices
in neo-liberal times
himself without even requesting the assistance of the teacher. At this time I
left the room.
Later, I had a discussion with the principal as to what this was all
about and why the man from the Ministry was in such a hurry to come up
with a list of names. He told me that they were sent to Alemaya to evaluate
the status of the preparatory program and how the TV lessons were
improving the quality of the students that were joining higher education
institutes. He assumed that political parties from the opposition4 were
questioning the Ministry with regard to the quality of education for those
students joining higher education institutes and their potential failure,
particularly due to the centrally monitored curriculum developed as per the
TESO document and worsened by the uni-directional lessons offered on TV.
He could not even guess why the delegation from the Ministry was in such a
hurry, although the letter they brought with them from the Ministry to the
school stated that they should stay for five days at Alemaya alone. He said
on that day they visited the classes, the delegation left the school after
depositing the questionnaires in the principal’s office to get them filled out
by students and parents, and to be sent to them to Dire-Dawa, a nearby
regional city some 45 km west of Alemaya. The delegates did not conduct
any interviews as they said they would.
Reflections
I attended three television sessions on two occasions. I wish I had attended
more, but I also suspect it would be more of the same thing. All the sessions
were completely teacher-centered or more specifically TV lecture-centred
and completely uni-directional. The differences from regular teaching were
that:
• The lectures were prepared in a foreign land.
• The instructor on TV was a white lady.
• The lessons were done on TV and broadcast via a satellite
system with state-of-the-art technology.
4
This year (2004/05) is an election year and opposition parties are covering every
bit of ground to criticize the government.
76
Critical Educational Visions and Practices
in neo-liberal times
77
Critical Educational Visions and Practices
in neo-liberal times
input into the development of the curricula as they did not have anything to
do with the preparation of lesson plans or their presentations.
The TV lessons have completely removed the teachers from the scene.
“Students are confronted with the policy makers or curriculum designers at
the Ministry of Education, and not their immediate teachers”1. Even when
the teacher is not there, students operate the TV and attend their TV lessons,
as observed on the day the teacher had a meeting. “This can be done by
anyone including the gatekeeper”2. Education is supposed to be based on
ideas like those expressed by the MoE (1995:2) which reads: “Teachers are
essential agents for positive societal change. Those adhering to the shift in
paradigm, i.e., teaching which makes changes in ideas and directly in
peoples’ lives, taking the real world into the classroom and teachers out into
the world and democratizing teacher education – giving teachers, students
and citizens confidence to make decisions and taking initiative, to take
control of their world”. This statement contains beautiful words that are
absurdly opposite to what is happening on the ground. How can teachers
play such a role where they are limited to ten minutes of a class, where they
do not have any say in the development of a curriculum and where they do
not plan a single lesson to interact with their students? How can students
play their role as described in the TESO document (MoE, 1995), when they
are stuck with an inanimate plasma TV as their teacher and have very little
interaction with their teacher, who is supposed to be a symbol and
representative of society and its interests? The same question can also be
raised for parents, who are not in a position to complain about or
acknowledge the merits of any teacher, when the lessons are offered by a
TV.
It was then very difficult for me to envisage how a teacher could do
continuous assessment, as demanded by the TESO document, of lessons he
did not plan or execute, as demanded by the TESO document. Or is that
1
Personal communication with Professor Staf Callewaert of Denmark who has
worked over 30 years in African education.
2
Personal communication with Dr. Lars Dahlström, renowned Swedish educator in
African schools for over 25 years from the Department of Education, Umeå
University, Sweden.
78
Critical Educational Visions and Practices
in neo-liberal times
5
The school principal informed me that they have now received the facilities
required for the purpose, including nine computers, and await only the telephone
connection and assistance in technical work that goes along with it.
79
Critical Educational Visions and Practices
in neo-liberal times
80
Critical Educational Visions and Practices
in neo-liberal times
many more teachers for high schools at six universities and a number of
teacher training colleges? Should these trainees keep on learning how to
plan lessons which they will not practice in schools? Will they be employed
by the government just to operate plasma TVs, not to put it in overly blunt
terms?
Would it be fair to propose that all stakeholders as suggested by the
Ministry of Education and others, approach each other at a democratic
national conference and debate the situation that is currently prevailing on
the ground instead of forcefully sampling students from the classrooms?
Undeniably, the delegate on 05 January 2005 wanted to come up with a list
of students and parents that he could present to his bosses. This makes the
situation even more complex since the selection seemed to be manipulated
to meet an already determined conclusion. The action taken on the ground
by the delegation, which can safely be assumed to be similar in most
schools of the country where such delegations were sent, is quite the
contrary to what is written in the TESO document: “… democratizing
Teacher Education – giving teachers, students and citizens confidence to
make decisions and take initiatives, to take control of their world” (MoE
1995: 2).
Conclusion
From the two documents of the Ministry of Education, namely, the
Education Sector Development Programs I and II (MoE, 1999 and 2002,
respectively), and the Teachers’ Education Systems Overhaul document also
formulated by the Ministry of Education, it may be correct to assume that
there is the desire to transform teaching from how it is regarded in the
present Ethiopian situation (least desirable, financially least motivating, no
future career development opportunities, etc.) into a profession that is
rewarding for those involved and is a socially acceptable and respected
career. This seems to be difficult to realize with the introduction of the
plasma TV system, where teachers have very little to do and have no
influence on or contribution to the development of children in schools. Horn
(1997: 4) states that the transformation of teaching from an occupation into
a profession creates new leadership roles for teachers who wish to stay in
the classroom and are willing to take on additional assignments. He further
81
Critical Educational Visions and Practices
in neo-liberal times
82
Critical Educational Visions and Practices
in neo-liberal times
References
Campbell, E. (2003) Let right be done: Trying to put ethical standards into
practice. In: The ethical dimensions of school leadership, Editors: P. T.
Begley and O. Johansson. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht,
The Netherlands. 236 pp.
Dimmock, C. and Walker, A. (1998) Comparative educational
administration: Developing a cross–cultural comparative framework.
Educational Administration Quarterly, 34(4): 558-595.
GFDRE (Government of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
(1994) Education and training policy, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
83
Critical Educational Visions and Practices
in neo-liberal times
84