Impact Assessment Report PRP’s RADIO CAMPAIGN The authors’ views expressed in this document do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) or the United States Government. USAID-funded Pakistan Reading Project Page 2 of 42 PRP’s Radio Campaign | Impact Assessment Report Table of Contents Introduction to the Project ..................................................................................................... 6 The Radio Campaign .............................................................................................................. 6 The purpose of the impact assessment ................................................................................... 7 Methodology: ........................................................................................................................ 7 Survey Limitations ........................................................................................................................ 8 Findings: ................................................................................................................................ 9 1. Messages-based feedback from listeners during the broadcasts ............................................ 9 2. Post-Intervention Survey ........................................................................................................ 12 Assessment of Radio Program Broadcasts ............................................................................. 12 Conclusion and Recommendations: ...................................................................................... 17 Annex-1 – Listners Survey .................................................................................................... 19 Annex-2 – A Log of Calls and SMS Messages on the Radio Programs ...................................... 21 Annex-3 – Call in Logs ........................................................................................................... 36 USAID-funded Pakistan Reading Project Page 3 of 42 PRP’s Radio Campaign | Impact Assessment Report Executive Summary The USAID-funded Pakistan Reading Project (PRP) aims to improve the quality of early-grade reading in public schools through various reading-focused interventions at the policy and community level. This report presents the findings of post-intervention survey conducted for a series of educational radio-programs broadcasted between June 2014 and March 2015, on nine local radio stations in various geographical regions of the country, including Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), Balochistan, Punjab, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), Gilgit Baltistan (GB), and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). These programs were presented to the public in Urdu and Pashto languages. The radio stations have a fairly large audience base since in the rural settings; radio is one of the most listened to media outlet. During the past 10 years, as the Government of Pakistan has provided licenses for the operation of FM radios, more young people have turned to them for entertainment and other information needs. The radio programs were broadcasted for nearly ten months and included various engaging segments such as host chats, children’s drama series, story-telling, music and poetry to improve awareness on the importance and value of reading in communities. After completion of a series of these radio programs in March 2015, the project carried out a post-intervention survey to record communities’ feedback about these programs and gauge the intervention’s impact in terms of change in knowledge, attitude and practices related to reading. The project had a database of 289 telephone numbers of active listeners which was provided by Equal Access, the entity that was implementing this program as a sub-partner of PRP. Out of 289 telephone numbers the survey team selected 184 sample listeners’ phone numbers for the survey. Due to a mix of challenges and constraints, only 23 listeners (of the selected 184), responded to the survey. There were myriad reasons for this small in-person response (details provided further down in this report); a prime reason was that the majority of the telephone numbers that the project had, had been closed by the government during a recent measure to connect cell phone numbers to the national identity card numbers of the telephone number owners. People living in the rural areas usually do not have ID cards and traveling to a NADRA office to verify the phone number with the national ID number is also a challenge for many. Given these reasons, the survey team decided to survey 23 listeners, and go back to the recordings of the radio programs and listen to each of them to see what people were saying when they called into the radio stations to register their comments about the reading programs. 40 such comments were analyzed. In addition, the PRP team studied 249 SMS messages that were sent to the radio stations (database kept by Equal Access) to understand the extent to which people liked these programs. USAID-funded Pakistan Reading Project Page 4 of 42 Given the limited number of direct survey respondents and listeners’ feedback messages, it is pertinent to mention that the findings of this report are not fully attributable to the entire targeted population. However, surveys with people, combined with an analysis of the comments of people when they called in and their SMS messages, give us some measure of how people were perceiving these radio programs and whether the radio segments had some impact on how people and children viewed reading. The analysis of the respondents’ feedback suggests that the radio campaigns had a positive effect on the promotion of a reading culture in the communities that were listening to the programs. The following is a glimpse of some dial-in comments and SMS messages (these have been taken verbatim). Detailed information is provided further down in this report: "We really like drama Mashal". "Story segment in program is very interesting." "I like the whole program of children but my favorite part of this program is Bolti Kitab (Talking Book), all the presenters present it so nicely and it has a lot of information for us", "Today I listen your Pr0grm Thrugh cmptr On Pakistan Histry.waz very bst and Frst tme We mean the Meaning of our history.and als0 abt the clges and abt the univristies .evry thng in pr0grm waz very Knowlge ful..thnks alt fr tht kind of pr0grm." "pa dumra lwe kaar darla daad darkao, che tasu da talem dapara dumra hale zale kawe. Ao pa pohtanu ke taleem aam kol ghware (translation - I salute you for this work. That you are doing so much for education and want to make education common amongst Pushtuns).” "mujhay bolti kitab buhut pasand aye q k is may buhut sari information thi (translation - I really admire Talking Book because it had a lot of information)." "I like story of the day. We should not lie or steal something, its bad." "Bakhtullah reading in class 4th from Quetta, mujhay poem achi lagi (translation - I'm Bakhtullah, student of class 4 from Quetta I liked the poem a lot) Although implemented for only a short while, the radio programs seem to have had a strong impact on how people view reading and other general education improvement. It is unfortunate that the funding for the radio initiative had to be cut and the program had to scale back. Radio and other media are powerful ways of changing the perception of people about certain things in life. Young people, especially those living in the rural areas, are drawn to good media programming which is perceived as useful to their lives. Pakistani radio and other media has been used by several entities, especially religious groups, to draw people to a cause. PRP’s radio programs, if allowed to continue, could have complemented other initiatives of the project and communities could have had more enriched exposure to reading activities and concepts. USAID-funded Pakistan Reading Project Page 5 of 42 Introduction to the Project The USAID-funded Pakistan Reading Project (PRP) endeavors to strengthen Pakistan’s education sector in the course of improving the quality of early grade reading in public schools. Being the first large-scale education award in Pakistan focused on reading, PRP scope is oriented in a way to improve both teaching and learning paradigm. Reflecting a sharp focus on the most prominent drivers of change, PRP intervention actuates its mutually-reinforcing objectives across three levels of the country’s education environment: (1) improve the classroom learning environment for reading; (2) enhance policies and systems that support reading; and (3) increase community-based opportunities to practice reading outside of school. The Radio Campaign PRP has a special focus on teacher and classroom needs to attain improved reading outcomes as the foremost part of its action strategy. However the strategy is also complemented by surrounding reading-focused interventions at the policy and community level that further strengthen the enabling environment for improved reading outcomes among children. With this approach, PRP had broadcasted an educational weekly radio series, at a national level, including in KP, Balochistan, ICT, Punjab, AJK, GB and FATA in Urdu and Pashto languages. The radio shows were broadcasted on different channels of Radio Pakistan. The following transmitters were used for broadcasting PRP radio programs in the provinces/regions. AM-1170 Mhz - Peshawar AM-756 Mhz - Quetta FM-101.5 - Peshawar FM 93 - Bannu FM 101 - Quetta