Seminar on the Use of Mass Media for Social Education in Urban Areas of Africa

Extract

One major problem facing the countries of Western Africa is the rapid process of urbanisation and the inability of the towns to integrate untrained and generally illiterate immigrants from the rural areas.

In March 1956, U.N.E.S.C.O. established a ‘Pilot Project for the Application of New Techniques and Methods of Education’; the Dakar seminar was held to discuss the results of this project and, in particular, the use of television in social education. Delegates attended from 11 countries—Congo (Kinshasa), Congo (Brazzaville), Ivory Coast, Dahomey, Gabon, Guinea, Upper Volta, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Togo–together with observers from interested ministries in Senegal, the I.L.O., W.H.O., the U.N. information services, O.R.S.T.O.M. (the French scientific research organisation for overseas territories), the World Association for Christian Radio and Television, the African Union of National Radio and Television Services, and the International Union for Public Health Education. Most strongly represented, of course, was U.N.E.S.C.O. itself, both by headquarters and local staff, and by the experts and consultants at work on the pilot project.