GYAN VANI

After Gyan Darshan - Educational TV channel of India now it is time for Gyan Vani - Educational FM radiochannels. IGNOU has been given the opportunity to set up 40 such stations in a 3 year time frame.

The government of India has decided to allot these educational radio channels to IGNOU at the places where the skywaves are being opened to private sector.

IGNOU organised a workshop to find out the feasibility of forming a radio cooperative involving NGOs in various centre. We give below the report for the readers to go into and offer their suggestions.

The whole concept is in the drawing room and as many suggestions as possible can be incorporated.

A Roundtable Conference to develop an Operational Document for the proposed Gyan Vani Channel was organized at the EMPC Conference Hall from 17th to 19th August, 2000.

• Ms. Jayashree Mehta, Director, SATWAC, Foundation
• Ms. Vijayluxmi Bose, Media Consultant
• Ms. Sevanti Ninan, Media Columnist
• Ms. Bandana Mukhopadhyay, Consultant (CommunityRadio), National Foundation for India
• Prof. K E Eapen, Communication Expert
• Mr. Ashish Sen, Director, Voices
• Dr. B P Sanjay, Deccan Development Society
• Mr. M. Abdul Rehman Pasha, Mass Media Expert
• Mr. C U Bellakki, AIR, Mangalore
• Mr. V Rama Rao, Joint Director (Engg.), EMPC, IGNOU
• Ms. Usha Chander, Research Officer, EMPC, IGNOU

• Ms. Vasanthi, Director, Centre for Media Studies
• Dr. Kiran Karnik, Vice-President, Discovery Channel
• Mr. R C Misra, Joint Secretary (Broadcasting), Ministry of I&B
• Mr. K S Sarma, Addl. Secretary, Ministry of HRD
• Dr. (Ms.) Jo Tacchi, Research Fellow, Tom Hopkinson Center for Media Research, Cardiff University, UK
• Mr. P S Sundaram, CMD, BECIL
• Prof. A W Khan, Vice Chancellor, IGNOU
• Dr. R. Sreedher, Director, EMPC, IGNOU
• Mr. Arun Mehta, MD, Indata.Com
• Mr.Vincent Victor, JD (IEC), Population Foundation of India
• Prof. Devesh Kishore, IGNOU

The proposal by IGNOU to open up a part of the channel for the social and voluntary sector was welcomed by all the members of the round table. Everyone agreed that this is the first opportunity for this sector to prove that opening up of the air-waves is beneficial for the state as media can be used for empowerment, advocacy and non-formal education through direct participation of the communities. It was felt that the successes and limitations encountered at the initial stages can be later used as inputs for phased expansion. Professional development communicators working with communities can then be in a better position to argue the case for access to transmission for development.

Prof. A W Khan set the tone of the deliberations by drawing attention to the existing massive gap between the demand and supply of education, especially for the disadvantaged sections of the society. He said that IGNOU having been identified as a nodal agency envisaged the Gyan Vani Channel as a 'Radio Cooperative' and hoped to tap the vast expertise and commitment of the social and voluntary sector to participate in the programming for the channel with the aim of increasing the relevance, access and credibility of the channel as a people's medium.

Prof. Khan felt that the cooperation of the social sector in running the channel was very critical to communities as the expertise to create awareness amongst the unreached segments for empowerment already vests with them and increasing their stake in a channel of this kind would help carry the message more effectively and efficiently. He was also of the opinion that the model adopted should be a decentralized one with greater emphasis on participatory and field based programming if it was to be more meaningful. He called for a detailed 'resource mapping' of the 40 centres to be done as the first step.

Mr. Kiran Karnik suggested that the channel should not feel compelled to compete with the parallel commercial channels which would come up alongside especially in the cities as the listenership of an educational channel is always different and definitely smaller. The challenge of Gyan Vani lies in its ability to project itself as a reliable voice of the community, and its contribution towards changing the existing mindset of the people. Its impact, he warned, can be measured only in a longitudinal time frame.

Mr.Karnik cited the unparalleled growth of the Cable TV in India due to its popularity with the masses and timeliness and suggested that efforts should be made to achieve convergence of technologies in the participation, backup systems as well as the feedback mechanisms from the initial stages. Mr.Kiran Karnik was in favour of trying a multi- model approach and learning instead of a monolithic model.

Sh.R.C.Mishra, JS (Broadcasting), MIB traced the thinking and processes in the government leading to the launch of the Gyan Vani Channel. Cautioning against preoccupation with competing with commercial channels in raising resources from similar areas, he said that the government was open to ideas and suggestions to reach out viably to masses by the educational and social sector. He felt that due its very mandate the Gyan Vani Channel should work towards a 'bottoms-up' flexible model. He expected this channel to spread like 'wildfire'.

Sh. K.S.Sarma, Addl. Director, MHRD was extremely concerned with the operational nitty gritties of running the channel effectively when he sought clarifications regarding matters of funding etc. He invited the social sector to take on the major stake in the 60:40 ratio vis-`-vis the hardcore educational sector pointing out that the latter were already burdened with the Gyan Darshan Channel and had fewer audio production facilities, etc. He suggested a pre-launch 'build-up' be made for the Gyan Vani Channel through cross channel publicity in the weekly IGNOU Hour on AIR, Gyan Darshan etc.

At the outset it was unanimously decided:

• IGNOU will be the nodal agency for the Gyan Vani Channel, but the 40 centres will be essentially independent and the channel will be decentralized in structure and functioning.

• The channel will come into existence through phased expansion with technical support from AIR, and minimal infrastructure investments.

• Bulk of the programme will come from the existing educational agencies of the Ministry of HRD (UGC, NCERT, NOS, NLM, etc) while NGOs and other social and voluntary agencies will be partners in production and programme content for non-formal education and community participatory programmes.

• In the first phase, the channel will broadcast for 16 hours a day, with original programme generation of 8 hours only. Distribution of 4 hours with respect to the educational programmes will be as per the needs of the local stations.

• Finance for the channel will largely come from MHRD but the contributing partners will be expected to provide at least part finance for the programmes as and when required.

The three-day conference was divided into six sessions, each of three hours duration to look into the following aspects:

• Identification of the Target Audience
• Academic Course and Content
• Project Coordination
• Content and Feedback Mechanisms
• Technical inputs for the Channel

Recommendations of the Conference are:

1. It is important to get a physical mapping of the listeners before the Gyan Vani channel comes into operation. Its target should ideally be the disadvantaged or marginalized sections of the society, for e.g., women, adults as well as adolescents; children, both in and out of school; the physically challenged, elderly and the unorganized labour. Programmes should focus exclusively on those living within the transmitter reach of the local center. The centers at present are all located in urban areas but effort has to be made to identify migratory and agriculture based communities in the target area as many of these people need access to information and a forum of expression. Surveys carried out in non-formal education centers and the small-scale industrial establishments will also be useful. The participation of the social and voluntary sector in the programming for the channel is particularly important as identification of the target and potential audience can be carried out through existing networks and "walk through the community" approach.

2. The first and foremost aspect of the content all the members felt must be communication in the local idiom and dialects. The Roundtable also suggests that programmes originated by the social and voluntary sector should constitute 4 hours of programme daily while the rest 12 hours will carry programmes produced by educational wings of MHRD like NCERT, UGC, NOS, NLM etc. The core group further suggests that these organizations should be advised to produce 'interactive' live programmes in the local dialect and idiom for enabling easier audience identification with the channel. Mr. R.C.Misra said that care should be taken to ensure that the central purpose of the channel, namely non- formal education, is not diluted during programming. He cautioned the group to keep in focus the implications of split objectives and defocusing and suggested that the channel can be developed to emerge as a 'niche' service for the non-formal education module.

3. While the core group does not wish to interfere in the contents of the curriculum-based courses, it hopes that Gyan Vani Channel will be able to take up the challenges of the mainstream educational opportunities. There is need to make the courses offered area-specific, catering to the needs of the target listeners, offer print supplement to the audio, also keep open the provision of value- added services like downloading of texts through the internet, radio data service, etc.

4. The programmes made by the social and the voluntary sector will be aimed to develop awareness and help in the process of empowerment of the target listeners. Indigenous knowledge must be central to the content and effort will be to establish a programme production strategy in consonance with local priorities and needs suited to local needs.

5. Extensive deliberations took place to work out a practicable yet community-oriented structure to run the Gyan Vani Channel. The conference recommends a Radio Cooperative formed under the IGNOU/MHRD Act as the central body governing the channel.

• Vice-Chancellor, IGNOU

• 7 Nominated Members from Educational Institutions Affiliated with MHRD
• 6 members from the zonal societies representing the centers from North Central, Eastern, North eastern, Southern, Western Zones to be demarcated by IGNOU

• Director, EMPC, IGNOU/Head of Media Centre

The Governing Council will be responsible for the Mission Statement of the channel. It will formulate the Educational and Community Broadcast Code for the Channel, develop policy guidelines for expansion and diversification of the support centers for resource mobilization, budget allocation for channel, interact with MHRD and other financial centers, fee structure for the staff and programme production, and handle all matters concerning legal, technical and administrative support for the centers. Liability of the content of any programme, legal or responsive, however, will rest with the producer.

The Governing Council is to nominate an Advisory Council with each member having a 2-year term to suggest improvements,determine the educational agenda to help develop the channel as a School for Continuing Education for specialized academic courses.

At the actual production and broadcast level, the structure will be:

Operational Head:

Regional Director of IGNOU / Director of the Deptt. of Media Studies, nearest Open University

Operational Head will be assisted in programme planning by the local Gyan Vani Radio Society which will act as a strategic partner to IGNOU in running the channel. Membership will be offered to local voluntary or social service groups, duly registered. The Governing Council will decide a uniform membership fee. This body will be responsible for programme content and implementation. It will help to outsource programmes, formulate, plan and implement research and feedback strategies, help in simple administrative operations through supply of volunteers and will be overall responsible for the daily 4 hours content of social sector contribution to the channel.

The centers will work with minimal infrastructure establishment. The local Radio Council will have its own premises, preferably occupying the office of the Council Chairperson and will be accessible to the public. All administrative responsibility of the center will lie with IGNOU. IGNOU will appoint two Programme Officers, two Assistant Programme Officers and one Administrative Officer in each center to run the channel. All these personnel will be locally recruited, on contractual terms, and will be responsible for running the day- to-day functions of the center.

The local council will elect from among its members a small group to monitor the channel and prepare an audience survey report periodically. It will also be responsible for finding ways to cultivate audience, develop interactive programming and feedback loops and formats, and help in prioritizing the programmes.

The conference strongly recommends interactive format for the programmes made by the social sector and gives emphasis to 'live' interaction whenever possible. Programmes will not be commissioned by IGNOU but bought on royalty with terms of the copyright remaining with the production house for future use. The needs, aspirations and basic concerns of the target audience will be a priority for programme production, constituting a large part of the social sector programming.

So far there has been very little opportunity for the social and voluntary sector to participate in programme planning and production. The committee recognizing these lacuna recommended that professional expertise be strengthened by on-going processes of capacity building through workshops, conferences and on-job training zonal headquarters to maintain the content and technical standard of the channel. Prof. Eapen emphasized the need to look into the content aspect of programming in the training modules; to learn what, how and why of an issue to present it successfully.

The popular social sector model of Participatory Urban Appraisal (PUA) system is recommended to develop a topography of the social issues for the channel. The feedback can also look at the system of social audit on a continuing basis. Overall an in-built evaluation system has to develop at the local level for the Gyan Vani programmes.

The core group endorsed that local centers have to develop their own methodology for a regular feedback system for the channel. The recent popular techniques of coopting corporate participation and partnership in increasing the number of radio sets in a community, resorting to cross channel publicity potential, systematic development of listenership, revenue generation through sale of popular serials, music etc, were some of the suggestions forwarded by the group. It was felt that universities could also be invited to take up this channel as a media project for the students.

The Gyan Vani Channel will by and large avail the AIR technical infrastructure for the broadcasts. IGNOU agreed to explore the possibility of using the DDS transmitter and VOICES 'Briefcase Radio' as research projects to evaluate the channel potentials.

Inputs of Technical Experts to the conference were as follows:

• Use the Data Radio Service

• Upgrade the transmission power gradually using the weaker transmitters by turn in newer intervention areas.

• It is possible to change the technical support of the broadcast material as long as the basic audio specifications are complied with.

• Technology should not be seen as an impediment for field based productions where convenience of technology should be primary.

• Funding and revenue generation must be an integral part of the functioning of the Channel from the very beginning was the most emphatic suggestion by Sh. K.S.Sarma.

GYAN VANI VISION STATEMENT

Gyan Vani endeavours to bring about educational and social development of the community through radio. It seeks greater empowerment of the people, particularly the disadvantaged, through their participation.

The mission is to reach and hear millions using rich oral traditions, cultural heritage and indigenous knowledge system of the people, by building larger collaborations and strengthening partnerships at local level. Gyan Vani will be an interactive, participatory, educational initiative to bridge the gap between the educationally privileged and the deprived.

LIST OF PARTICIPANTS

• Gyan Programmes
  
• EMPC