Improving educational quality II (IEQ II)

In Honduras, 88 percent of the rural population has 6 years or less of formal education. Several distance education schemes have been undertaken to address both low rural educational levels and the destruction of schools by Hurricane Mitch. This paper reports on recent studies of two distance education efforts with substantial international support. Since the mid-1990s, USAID has supported EDUCATODOS, which originally covered grades 1-6 using packages of printed materials supplemented by radio lessons. In 1999, the program was extended to grades 7-9, and audio materials were distributed on cassettes and CDs. Telebasica is based on the Mexican Telesecundaria program and serves grades 7-9 using videotapes and printed materials from Mexico. Telebasica operates during the day with trained teachers in converted schools, while EDUCATODOS operates in the evening in any available space using volunteer facilitators. A 1997 evaluation of EDUCATODOS found that the program had offered 120,000 person-hours of schooling to Honduran youth and adults at 28 percent of the cost of equivalent traditional schooling. EDUCATODOS students had higher achievement than traditional elementary students,

Source: DEC abstract, PN-ACS-245 (2002). This is the source's own text, not a cited summary of the documents.