Tuning In

By Elizabeth Schwinn

Schools in developed countries may worry about providing enough computers to their students, but in some parts of India, the problems are more basic: a lack of teacher training, books, or even a blackboard. But most schools can track down a radio, and now that can become a teaching tool with help from an American nonprofit group.

The Education Development Center, based in Newton, Mass., works with local officials in India to develop daily half-hour radio broadcasts that teach English and other subjects to elementary-school children. The center also provides workbooks and training for teachers to help them build on the lessons.

The program, called the dot-EDU India Technology Tools for Teaching and Training, is one of numerous educational programs offered around the world by the Education Development Center, which has an annual budget of about $120-million. The India program was paid for last year by a $400,000 grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Vandita Sharma, director of the program in India, says response to the broadcasts has been positive, and the Education Development Center hopes to expand them to more parts of the country next year.

The children, she says, enjoy the broadcasts because, unlike their other classes, which feature lectures or exercises in memorization, the radio classes engage them in songs and other activities. The teachers like them too, says Ms. Sharma: "The first thing they tell us is that it has helped them a lot because they themselves don't speak English very well. They learn along with the children. And they feel very confident when they teach English. One said, 'I wish when I was young we had programs like this. I would have been a much better teacher now.'"

Here, first- and second-grade students in Jaipur listen to an introductory-English broadcast.