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DOT-COM Activity: Honduras - Interactive Radio Instruction for Preschool Education
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DOT: dot-EDU
Country: Honduras
Funder(s):
Short Description: This activity is an IRI-based pre-school program together with FEREMA, a local Honduran NGO.
Phase/Type of Activity: Signed Award Status: Completed
Start date: April 01, 2002 End Date: June 30, 2005
Partners:
Person(s) to contact
Contact
Yvette Sanchez , Project Director
IRI Based Pre-School Program Honduras , Education Development Center
Email:
Tel:
Full Description: This activity is an IRI-based pre-school program together with FEREMA, a local Honduran NGO. This program is in support of and in accordance with the new Mission Strategic Plan 2004-2010, and its strategic objectives, intermediate results, indicators and targets. Some overall project objectives are to (1) Achieve greater efficiency of student learning and reduction of student failure rates in primary education through the development and demonstration of a one-year, high-quality program that can be offered with significant recurrent costs savings; (2) Increase the percentage of children enrolled in pre-school programs; (3) Reduce student repetition, particularly in the first grade (currently over 20%); and (4) Improve student performance in essential cognitive and social skills, including early literacy.
Update 1 (as of June 2004):
dot-EDU staff had a very successful year so far with most notable achievements included the opening of 53 early childhood development centers (kindergartens) in 2 areas of Honduras and the official launch. Final production of the first unit (audio programs a, b, c, 1-24) was finalized in the early months of 2004, production of 100 sets of all CDs of unit 1of the Juego y Aprendo series were finalized as well. Worksheets for the first unit (1-24) were adjusted in their final version and reproduced for 53 centers, while all materials for unit 1 of the Juego y Aprendo series were packed and distributed to 53 preschool centers. In coordination with the Direcciones Departamentales de Educacion, 52 preschool centers opened their doors in early February and continue to be functional today. 15 of these centers are located in Comayagua, 32 in La Paz and 5 in Francisco Morazán. To assist in the openings of the centers, several NGOs will help FEREMA including CARE, ALFASIC and UNISA.
Update 2: (July-Sept. 2004)
Dot-EDU staff continued to work in developing radio programs, worksheets, posters, and teacher guides. In addition, formative evaluation continued to move forward with all draft materials undergoing field tests. Three minutes have been completed and a fourth unit is largely completed.
Update 3: (January-March 05)
108 programs have been adapted for radio broadcast format, with 50 programs rebroadcasted. Thirty Honduran stations, all of which currently broadcast AprenMat, the IRI mathematics program, have agreed to broadcast the PREPI programs free of charge for one year. In addition to the radio programs, an outreach campaign for parents and community members has been launched in the targeted regions. Training has been provided to target groups in the area to raise awareness about the importance of early childhood education.
Lessons Learned: (August 2005) The project was completed in August 2005. Finally, the short term summative evaluation revealed that through a low cost alternative learning system, positive changes can be made to the skills, knowledge and attitudes of children, community educators, parents and the community at large. The Juego y Aprendo project had a direct impact on the community educators who were the group who received continuous training and support from the project as change was exhibited in the classroom environment. Meanwhile, the majority of the comments made throughout the community interviews were that the center was important as it would support and advance the education of the children and with assistance parents and community member were willing to advocate for keeping the center open.. In terms of outcomes for children, the results are encouraging as the data revealed that the program made a positive impact on the children across all developmental areas bringing the majority of the children from Needs Attention and High Risk to Developed and even a small group into the Advanced category. Due to the positive outcomes that the project has revealed FEREMA has been able to secure additional funding and throughout 2005 an additional 2000 preschool centers using Juego y Aprendo will open, helping the country of Honduras to provide quality preschool education to children not currently served by the existing system and making progress towards its goal of providing education for all.
ICT Intervention(s): Interactive Radio Instruction, Radio
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