Education in Sierra Leone is a scarce resource. Located on the West African coast, Sierra Leone is a nation where, despite making steady progress since the decade-long civil war, poverty remains widespread. This is particularly true in rural areas where infrastructure is limited. As of 2019, the literacy rate (of those ages 15 and above) was 44%.
Background
Thousands of children grow up unable to read and write because school is inaccessible for them: perhaps the journey is too long, or their families require them to work. Crises only deepen the gap. During emergencies- health crises, natural disasters or conflict-schools often have to close, and families face displacement.
Yet from these forced closures emerged an unexpected opportunity. During the Ebola outbreak, radio education in Sierra Leone kept children learning at home. When COVID-19 hit, this innovation returned stronger than before- expanding across the country and making education more accessible than ever before.
During school closures, radio education initiatives became a lifeline and, seeing their effectiveness, the nation made a decision to continue running them as a means of combating illiteracy rates, particularly benefiting those children who are unable to attend school. Here are two such radio education initiatives in Sierra Leone.
Rising On Air
In 2020, Rising Academy Network launched Rising on Air (ROA), a free educational resource aiming to keep education alive in places where school access is fragile or interrupted. Foreign donors and international nonprofits provide funding for it, and it operates under a Creative Commons license, allowing partner organizations to freely use, adapt and broadcast its curricula via radio or phone, UNESCO reports. For families who do not own either a phone or a radio, ROA broadcasts the content on radios in local community centres.
ROA serves learners aged 3-23, covering early childhood, primary and secondary levels across subjects like literacy, mathematics, arts and health education. ROA content is modular and it delivers it in 20-week units, designing it to reach youths who struggle with marginalization the most in traditional schooling systems: women and girls, refugees and young people from rural communities, according to UNESCO.
Development Modules
ROA does not ignore the needs of teachers: it includes professional development modules for educators delivered in audio format. Importantly, ROA built the program deliberately for settings where reliable internet is weak or absent and digital infrastructure is scarce. Additionally, the scripts and audio lessons that ROA provides can be adapted, rerecorded in local languages and used flexibly.
The initiative operates at an extremely low cost-around $0.03 per learner annually, making it a scalable model for reaching children in crisis or hard-to-reach communities. Despite ROA’s several challenges (program awareness and reaching extremely rural areas), this adaptive, low-cost model is evolving and equipping Sierra Leone’s youth with vital literacy and numeracy skills.
Every Adolescent Girl Empowered and Resilient
In Sierra Leone, young girls are much more likely than boys to drop out of school, or never attend in the first place. Funded by the U.K.’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the Every Adolescent Girl Empowered and Resilient (EAGER) initiative is helping to transform the lives of out-of-school girls aged 13-17 who face barriers to education such as early marriage, teenage pregnancy and gender-based violence.
At the heart of the project is Wae Gyal Pikin Tinap (“When the Girl Child Stands”), a weekly radio program. Launched in 2020 and broadcast in the Krio language, the show aims to challenge negative attitudes that prevent girls from accessing, or remaining in, education. It educates young girls on sex, menstrual hygiene and family planning and encourages the belief that education is a pathway to opportunity.
The Story of Aminata
One episode shared the journey of Aminata, a young woman who uses a wheelchair and has built a thriving business selling toiletries and hygiene products. Hearing personal stories of accomplishment from girls their age in similar situations inspires and motivates the girls. Stories like Aminata’s have resonated across communities and sparked family discussions about girls’ education and potential.
EAGER believes that it is vital to teach young girls that they are deserving of opportunity and by encouraging them to tap into their talents and learn new skills, their self-belief becomes the foundation for success. Their message is simple but powerful: when girls stand tall, entire communities rise with them.
The Future
Across Sierra Leone, initiatives like Rising on Air and EAGER demonstrate how a simple, household item can become a powerful engine for change. By delivering free, accessible education to children and adolescents who might otherwise be excluded, these programmes equip young people with the skills needed to pursue employment and generate income.
Beyond that, EAGER demonstrates the ability to transform community attitudes: encouraging parents to value education, empowering girls to delay early marriage and inspiring families to invest in learning as a path to stability. Radio education in Sierra Leone has the potential to break the cycle of poverty by widening opportunity. In places where poverty once silenced potential, radio waves now carry a new sound of hope and possibility.
– Elysha Din
Elysha is based in Guildford, UK and focuses on Good News and Politics for The Borgen Project.
Source: Fighting Poverty through Radio Education in Sierra Leone – The Borgen Project