Independence from Illiteracy through TV: Putting an old ICT to new ends On the eve on India's Independence Day, 2002, an experiment is being launched by Doordarshan and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad to contribute to making every Indian independently literate. This most ambitious of goals is being approached with the simplest of ideas, under a grant won in Development Marketplace 2002 (World Bank's global innovation competition).*
What is this all about? Watch DD-1's Chitrahaar** Wednesday, August 14, 2002 (or later episodes on Wed) 7:30pm to 8:00pm The longest running film-based programme in the history of television, especially popular in the villages, is being transformed from staple entertainment to edutainment that is 'more' entertaining. The potentially major by-product is improvement in the literacy skill levels of millions of people. Same Language Subtitling (SLS) Can music-videos on TV herald a revolution in literacy? Yes, if you simply subtitled the lyrics of the existing songs-based programming on TV in the same language as the audio! In SLS the lyrics of Hindi songs appear in Hindi, Tamil songs in Tamil, and so on in any language. The synchronisation of audio and text is created through colour changes in the subtitles, identifying every word as it is being sung. Thus, SLS strengthens grapheme-phoneme associations which are weak in early literate people. Research with SLS The use of SLS for literacy was first proposed six years ago and on-going research since then, conducted in three separate experiments at the level of the classroom, village (on local cable) and state (in Gujarat on DDK Ahmedabad) have been consistent in finding that reading ability improves steadily as a result of viewing film and folk song based content with the addition of SLS. What is perhaps more relevant to network acceptance of the idea is that surveys have found that over 99% of viewers, semi-literate and literate alike, actually prefer song programming with SLS than without. Why people like SLS? Viewers have been video-taped in villages and slums trying to sing along through lip-synching. SLS enables viewers to know the song lyrics, 'hear' the words better (useful not just for the hearing but also the hearing challenged or deaf), and write down the lyrics. The cost of SLS? SLS integrates everyday reading/writing transactions into the lives of 500 million TV viewers in India at a cost of 3 paise (US$0.0065) per person per year. ******************************************************************* See SLS in action at: <http://sls4literacy.tripod.com> SLS was awarded the Best Social Innovation for the year 2000 in the Education category for the project, 'Subtitling TV Songs for Mass Literacy', awarded by The Institute for Social Inventions, London (U.K.). ******************************************************************* * For information on Development Marketplace: <http://www.developmentmarketplace.org> **Chitrahaar's production team: Research & Script: Manav Kaushik Creative Consultant: Sandhya Anchor: Tarana Editor: Nishikant Sathe Cameraman: Narsing Pothkanti Technical Expert: R. Sekhar Producer/Director: Mohan Middha <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ******************************************************************* CONTACTS (SLS project) Brij Kothari Associate Professor Wing 14, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad Ravi J. Matthai Centre for Educational Innovation Vastrapur, Ahmedabad-380015 Gujarat, India Tel: 91-79-632 4938 Fax: 91-79-630 6896 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ******************************************************************* Mukesh Sharma Director, DDK, Mumbai 91-22-493 8444; 493 8788 Sudhir Tandon Controller of Films, Doordarshan, New Delhi Telefax: 91-11-338 2981 ******************************************************************* Shankar Narayanan, Social Development Specialist South Asia Sector for Environment & Social Development The World Bank, 70, Lodi Estate, New Delhi- 110 003 INDIA Phone: +91 11 461 7241-4 Extn. 128 Fax: +91 11 461 9393 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ********************************************************************* ------------ ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, an NGO that is a GKP member*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/>
