Teacher Training in Africa

To focus on the issue of teacher training and education, the project made use of existing programmes being broadcast on the BBC World Service for Africa and the BBC Swahili Service. Programmes were in both English and Kiswahili and included the following:

• Four 1-hour specials of the interactive programme "Africa Have Your Say", relating to teachers and education in Africa.
• Two "African Perspectives" programmes focusing on teachers and schools in South Africa and Ghana.
• Throughout the week, the BBC's daily programmes, "Network Africa" and "Focus on Africa", included special reports following two teachers from East and West Africa who swapped places for a week. This programme, called "Teacher Swap", showed the reactions and perspectives of teachers as they experienced teaching in another country's education system. Click here to hear the programmes on the TESSA website. The daily programmes also included special reports from around the continent called "Teaching in Africa". Click here to listen to these programmes on the TESSA website.
• Documentaries, reports, interviews, and debates on teaching and education in East Africa were also featured on the regular BBC Swahili Service programmes "Amka Na BBC", "Dira Ya Dunia", and "Leo Afrika".
• The BBC World Service Trust team in Nigeria created 30 three- to four-minute mini-dramas, which modeled scenarios that teachers might encounter during their working lives. These mini-dramas are available as an audio resource for use in teacher training on the TESSA website. Click here to access these resources.
• The Nigeria team also collaborated with TESSA to produce a series of the popular radio drama "Story Story", highlighting the role of teachers in Africa.

In addition to radio programming, a dedicated Teachers in Africa website was created on the BBC Network Africa website, containing stories and views from the programmes.

Education.

TESSA aims to support education in Africa by providing quality resources for training Africa's primary school teachers that can be accessed via the internet. These resources have been written and designed by staff from African partner institutions to equip primary school teachers with teaching skills in the key areas of literacy, numeracy, science, life skills, social studies, and the arts.