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The conceptual considerations that follow were not all thought out in the early days of the activities that led to CESPAC's present methodology. Some of them were developed over time, and on the basis of experience. In fact, one of the principles of the project has always been that of continuous experimentation. The information below tries to provide an overall view of the guiding precepts and conditions that governed the development of the methodology, and of its main conceptual features.
Firstly, it is important to note that the Spanish word "capacitation", which is invariably used in the context of the methodology that was ultimately developed, has a broader meaning than the word "training" in English. While training has connotation. that limit it to the strict improvement of technical skills, "capacitation" holds notions of generally enhancing a person's capacity to improve his or her condition of life. In direct translation from a phrase used by the Project staff, "Capacitacion is helping people to take action to change their reality".
Naturally, enhancing technical skills is part of "capacitation", but implicit too is attitudinal change, or increased self-awareness, leading to action which may have nothing to do with technical matters.
So, in this sense, we are back to the Fogo Process described in the previous section, or what the famous Brazilian educationalist, Paolo Freire, called "conscientization", yet another word for which there is no proper English equivalent. In the essence, it means helping people to an increased state of awareness of their situation, and of self-confidence, so that they are stimulated to examine their problems objectively and adopt options for resolving them. It can be thought of as a first step down the path to self-help and towards people assuming responsibility for their own destiny.
It was also realized over time, and as CESPAC became more and more involved with the emarginated peoples of the Sierra, in their primarily subsistence farming, that the methodology should take fully into account traditional peasant knowledge and practice. This traditional, empirical and historical knowledge, which had at least provided survival over the centuries, could not, and should not, be underestimated and cast aside in a drive for modernization. Rather, this peasant knowledge needed to have rational, scientific and modern knowledge judiciously grafted onto it. The grassroot training system needed to facilitate this. It also needed to address the peasant in his own language and with images reflecting his own reality.
Further factors that conditioned the approach concerned the circumstances in Peru at the time. As mentioned in the previous section, the Peruvian agrarian reform process called for massive orientation and training of rural people to prepare them for their new roles and to modernize the rural sector generally.
CENCIRA had a total staff in its early years of only about 180 people, and only 60 of these were technical people who had the knowledge and capacity to be trainers. Most of the training they did was for Ministry of Agriculture staff, and in any case, such a limited number of people could do very little at the grass-root level.
The task facing the Communication Department of CENCIRA and its international advisers was to develop a methodology that could inform, motivate, and train rural people on a massive scale. More precisely, the objectives of the methodolgy would be to transfer to the rural producer and his family information aimed at helping them to make better use of natural resources and farm inputs; to improve the quality of rural life, including those qualities connected with health, education, and rural employment. At the same time, the communication system should benefit field-level technicians, particularly those working in extension, by providing them with a source of standardized technical information emanating from the research and academic sectors, by helping them expand the quality and quantity of their outreach, and by providing them with information that would in effect constitute a continuous in-service updating of their knowledge.
The extension services in Peru, as in so many countries, were short-staffed, under-trained, and under-equipped. Furthermore, their approach tended to be that of one-way transmitters of information in an autocratic "top-down" manner. It was not possible to rely on them alone to carry out the massive training task required.
The training approach had to take into account the high levels of illiteracy in rural Peru, estimated at 42% for men and 67% for women. This militated in favour of an audio-visual system.
Whatever communication media were to be used, they had to measure up to the specific requirements of Peru. In other words, they needed to be at an appropriate level of technology for the country to assimilate; they had to be economically viable in conditions as poor as those in Peru; they had to be utilisable even in remote area. and withstand the rigours of transport over poor roads, and so on.
The contents of programmes needed to be based on the peasants' needs; in other words, if whatever was made available to them in the way of information and training was to make any impact, it should have "utility value" that the audience could easily recognize.
Related to this was the need to provide information that was obviously relevant to the locality in which it was being used, or, in the jargon of communication specialists, which was "locally specific". For it is known that audio-visual materials made in locations which show different conditions or types of people from those in the area where the materials are being used have less impact, even if the content has utility value, than those made in the sane or in a similar environment. This is especially so among groups of low educational level whose limited knowledge and experience make it more difficult for them to perceive the relevance to their own situation of information originating elsewhere.
However, this need for "local specificity" was in direct contradiction with the need to provide training on a massive scale. In fact, the tug-of-war between reaching large numbers of rural people and providing materials specific to very local needs is inescapable.
All these needs and considerations were finally englobed in a methodology called "pedagogia audiovisual", the term used in the title CESPAC. It seems that in Spanish, "pedagogy" has a much broader meaning than it does in English. In fact, the difference between the two words is not unlike the difference that exists between "capacitation" and "training". "Pedagogy" in Spanish covers a general teaching/learning process, whereas in English it in usually taken to mean the art, science, or profession of teaching in a formal education context. For this reason, the direct translation "audio-visual pedagogy", apart from sounding absurd, does not convey the thinking that exists behind the Spanish version. So it cannot be used in English to describe the CESPAC methodology, even if we are prepared to stomach its pomposity.
Even more difficult is the proper English term for the people who work with this methodology. In Spanish, they are called "Pedagogos audiovisuales", that is to say "audio-visual pedagogues". But in English, the word "pedagogue" has the strong derogatory connotation of someone who teaches pedantically, so we are faced with yet another terminology problem. There seems little alternative but to call thee video programme producers, but this is not fully satisfactory because they are in fact farmer trainers at the same time. The author can only plea for the reader's patience and understanding, and at the same time state his refusal to use "pedagogis audiovisual" or "pedagogos audiovisualen" in anything other than the original Spanish, and between inverted commas. (However, the terms do translate into French satisfactorily).
"Pedagogía Audiovisual" is based on the saying "What I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I know." Farmer training "packages" have been developed on the basis of that saying, as we shall see in greater detail in a later section. Suffice it to say here that it it made up of video programmes, written materials, interpersonal discussions, and practical work.
An underlying principle of the methodology is to "recuperate, produce, conserve, and reproduce peasant knowledge", but adding modern scientific knowledge and practice to it when appropriate. Video is an ideal medium for creating open communication circuits for this purpose, circuits in which information can enter at any point and travel in any direction. For example, recordings made with peasants in the field showing an aspect of traditional peasant knowledge and practice can be shown to technicians who can comment, or they can be shown to other peasants. Or the process can begin with a technical proposal for peasants to comment on, and so on.
Schematically, the arrangement can be presented as below:
In effect, a communication bridge is established between all those playing an active role in grassroot-level training, and it is important to note that there is no hierarchical order. Indeed, the best available information in the teaching package can reach the grassroot level directly, whereas in most normal extension systems, information is filtered though several layers of the service before it reaches the grassroot level, with all the inherent risks of distortion.
Of course, the question of costs is of vital importance. As will be detailed later, the methodology specifically stresses artisanal production of training materials, with sub-professional equipment, to keep costs in line with the possibilities of a developing country.
Finally, having outlined the conceptual framework of the methodology, it should be mentioned that CESPAC staff talk about their "Theoretical Model" and their "Practical Model". The "Theoretical Model" is what they aspire to achieve, the ideal implementation of the methodology. However, real constraints and day-to-day problems often mire them in a "Practical Model", that is to say, what can be achieved in practice. CESPAC staff, carried away by enthusiasm, sometimes talk of their "Theoretical Model" as though it were a completed reality, leading to some confusion or incredulity among listeners familiar with the Project's activities! Of course, perfect implementation of the methodology is the objective towards which they strive; the goal is not unrealistic at all, but conditions in Peru are far from easy, and the methodology is still young.
When the Communication Department of CENCIRA and the FAO project staff agreed to purchase video equipment, it had certainly not been decided that the communication activities would centre on the use of this medium. In fact, a multi-media approach was in force and slide sets were still being produced in the period after the first video equipment arrived. Some 90 slide sets in total were produced by the Project.
With regard to other media, it was decided that, even though CENCIRA had film equipment, 16mm or 8mm film would be inappropriate in view of the need to process film outside Peru, and due to the very high cost of film production in General.
Printed materials were also an important part of the communication activities, and an FAO adviser worked with CENCIRA for an extended period to help with this aspect.
It is clear that, even in those early days, there was a strong feeling among Project staff that the Chilean video experience, which was curtailed by political events, should be reactivated in Peru and enlarged upon. The previous experience of the FAO adviser who had been in Chile, and his still earlier experience in educational broadcast and closed-circuit TV in Chile and in Argentina, certainly had a strong influence in favour of video.
Discussions among Project staff led them to the conclusion that in the "hors, medium, and long term, electronic recording and playback of images and sound, i.e. video, would offer greater advances and possibilities than the more traditional methods using light-sensitive chemicals, i.e. photography and its derivatives.
Time has proven this thinking to have been absolutely correct; for the developments in the video field in the last 15 years have been startling. We only have to remember that in 1972, when ICIRA began working with video in Chile, equipment for use outside the studio could only record in black and white; it used 1-inch wide tape on open reels; a typical camera weighed 5 kgs, and the separate recorder over 20 kgs; both required power from mains or from a generator; a reel of tape provided about 30 minutes of recording time; and the combined cost of camera and recorder was about $8,000. The manufacturers declared it "portable", but those who had to use it in the field jokingly called it "transportable".
Compare this with the Video 8 system launched in 1985, only 13 yearn later: it has camera and recorder mounted in a single unit; it records in colour, and with a quality that would have defied belief only a few years ago; it runs off a rechargeable battery and uses a tape 8mm wide in a cassette which provides 2 hours of recording time. The weight of the whole unit, complete with battery and cassette, is just 2.18 kg, and it costs about $1,200. Furthermore, similar progress in miniaturization and lowering of cost has been taking place in almost every video format.
Nevertheless, it was not given to everyone to share the Project staff's vision of the future, and there was virulent criticism from many quarters at the mere notion that something as sophisticated as video could be successfully and routinely used in rugged rural conditions.
Faced with such attacks, and with the accusation that they were holding a partisan position in favour of video, Project staff had difficulty providing chapter and verse for their belief in the future of video. They therefore tended to fall back on justifications that hardly stood up to the harsh light of careful examination. For example, they said that peasants preferred the movement video provided over elides, and this is probably true, but there was never any formal research finding to this effect. It was also stated that slide sets were more expensive than video, and it is true that film rawstock and slide copying are expensive compared to the cost of video-tape. But the equipment cost for slides are much lower. And it seems that no proper analysis was ever carried out to examine the possible establishment of a filmstrip laboratory to make multiple copies of slides sets in strip form through an internegative process. In Europe, this cuts the cost of copies to about half that of making individual elide sets when 50 copies of each are required, and to much less if even more are required.
Notwithstanding these points, it is clear that the Project staff took a correct decision in opting for video, given the objectives and the type of communication work to be done. But it did not seem so to many, and during the endless wrangles that took place in those early days, the contrived justifications did not help to convince people.
Despite their conviction that video would be the beat solution, the first video equipment was purchased in an experimental frame of mind, knowing that it would need to be tested for its suitability, and not knowing which particular models might be the most appropriate.
However, in the period between ICIRA's purchase for Chile of 1-inch so-called portable equipment and the first order for Peru, Sony Corporation had launched its Portapak system. This was indeed portable, and it worked off rechargeable batteries. It used half-inch tape on open reels, and it recorded in black and white. A microphone built into the camera recorded sound. This equipment was of sub-professional quality.
When the equipment first arrived, a specialist came form Sony for one month to help in its installation. This was the only outside assistance in electronic engineering that the Project has ever received.
An early technical problem encountered was in connection with the built-in microphone with its automatic audio levelling system. When recording scenes with a high ambient noise level, or scenes of an activity which was in itself noisy - for example farm machinery repair -- the sound of a person speaking near the microphone was correctly recorded and the ambient- noise pushed into the backgound. But in pauses between words or sentences, the automatic levelling system raised the volume of the ambient sound to that of the last word spoken, making a very uneven and disturbed recording.
From the start, the Project was lucky enough to have two Peruvian and one foreign, but locally resident, electronic engineers working with it. They were able to modify the equipment by eliminating the automatic audio-leveller and incorporating a manual one with a visual indicator in its place. They found the appropriate parts in Lima.
The project did good work with its black and white open-reel equipment, but then the cassette systems and colour video became widely available in 1978. Initially this colour equipment was far more expensive than the black and white, and there was some debate as to whether the project should be allowed to purchase it. (Today, of course, black and white equipment is only made in the form of surveillance cameras, and the price of colour equipment i. lower than black and white once was).
The arrival on the market of the Umatic 3/4-inch colour cassette system with its much improved editing system, as well as its far superior visual quality, opened a new era for the project. Since that time, all programme production has been carried out in the Umatic format. The grade of the equipment is Low Band, that in to say sub-professional, in keeping with the project's emphasis on economy. All colour equipment uses the NTSC standard of North America. It is cheaper to buy than PAL/SECAM, and the standard generally used in Peru is NTSC. There can be no doubt, however, that PAL/SECAM would provide better colour quality, an important consideration when dealing with agricultural topics.
While the technology for field recording, and for editing, presented few difficulties, the question of suitable playback unit. for use in rural areas was more problematic. While the field recording units were battery-operated, as just mentioned, the same was not initially true for the playback units consisting of recorder and monitor. These needed a source of electricity, and the only solution initially, when in the field, was to use generators. However, as has been the experience elsewhere with generators, they gave more trouble than the electronic video equipment. Furthermore, they were expensive to purchase. A solution to this problem was a priority.
It was decided that an inverted would best meet the need; an inverted could take 12-volt Direct Current from a car battery and convert it into the 110-130-volt Alternating Curent required by the equipment.
The Project's electronic engineers began to design and build their own inverted, using component. available on the local market in Lima. The resulting device, which cost only $200 at the time, was a lot cheaper than anything that could be purchased.
The advent of home video recorders using 1/2-inch tape in cassettes, with the Betamax or VHS systems, made field playback easier. There are models that will work directly off 12-volt DC power source, and the recorders are much smaller and lighter than earlier models. However, even with a model that will work off a 12-volt source, the monitor still requires 110 or 220 volts AC if the screen is to be big enough to cater for a large group of viewers. Inverters and 12-volt car or truck batteries have become the standard solution to this problem, both in Peru and elsewhere, so much so that Sony now supplies them. Of course, they can be made even more cheaply on an industrial scale, but CESPAC was the first project to explore this solution.
However, in remote areas without electricity -- and there are many of these in Peru -- there remains the problem of recharging the battery. An average fully charged battery will give about 4 hours of playback time, but there is an increasing tendency for video playback teams to stay in communities for 10 to 14 days at a time in order to cut down on transportation costs. If a vehicle has to come in every few days to bring a freshly charged battery, there is no transportation saving.
In 1986, therefore, a peddle-operated generator for battery recharging was developed. The project staff believe that the willingness of the farmers to recharge a battery by peddling for a period of up to 4 hours will provide an indication of their interest in seeing the video programmes made for them, a sort of ongoing evaluation through feedback!
The technique now used by CESPAC is to record all the material for video programmes on Umatic 3/4-inch equipment, and to do the editing in the same format to take advantage of the rapid and convenient Umatic editing systems. The finished programmes are then copied and reduced onto the 1/2-inch Betamax for use with farming communities.
As this is being written, the Project is experimenting with the new Video 8 format to see whether it could be used in playback units to reduce weight and energy needs. Video-8 provides an image which is almost as good as that of 3/4--inch Umatic.
As mentioned above, when the Project began to use video in rural areas, there were numerous critics. Most CENCIRA training staff were accustomed to nothing more advanced than blackboard and chalk as training aids. To leap into the video era seemed a folly to some of these people. Of course, many doubted that any serious information and training work could be done with video; in their minds they were probably relegating the medium to the world of entertainment and superficial information associated with TV.
Others stated that the equipment could not survive the rigours of rural use for more than a few weeks, or at best a few months. A particularly serious criticism, however, was that the Project was creating long-term technological dependency on the Japanese electronics industry, and that this was not in the interest of Peru.
The findings of the Technical Analysis, mentioned in the Author's Note and carried out in 1978, confounded all the worst doubters and critics, if they cared to be objectively interested. The consultant found that the equipment was being repaired almost entirely with electronic parts found in Lima. The repairs required were very few, taking into account the intensive use being made of the equipment: for months and years on end, shifts were worked with the limited equipment available, resulting in its working almost around the clock. Despite this, and the rugged conditions in the field, the consultant estimated that the useful life of the equipment would be at leant 5 years; and he hazarded a guess that it might even last 10 years, so good was the condition in which he found it.
His prognostication in thin regard has proven fairly accurate. In fact, there is equipment still at work that is considerably more than 5 years old.
On the other hand, it has emerged clearly that, especially with the playback units, the breakdown rate rapidly increases after 34 years. It is possible to argue that it would be cheaper, at that point, to replace it rather than to go on repairing it. The palyback units are relatively inexpensive, in any case.
The editing equipment is worked for longer hours than any other, and for this reason a High Band editing suite was purchased in 1984. This professional grade equipment is far more robust than the sub-professional equipment which makes up the rest of the editing suites.
Overall the video equipment has proved itself far more reliable than even the optimists expected. The commonest faults occur in the plugs and cables that connect camera to recorder, recorder to monitor, and so on. The constant plugging and unplugging ultimately damages them. For this reason, the Project has developed a special wooden carrying box for the playback units, which now number 115 in Peru. The case allows the recorder, inverted, monitor, and speakers to be carried as a single unit in the case which is divided into compartments for each item. The cables connecting them can remain coupled, thereby avoiding the wear and tear caused by constant plugging and unplugging, and at the same time providing excellent protection from shocks and dust. The only drawback in that the complete unit in its box weighs about 63 kgs, a considerable load even for two people using the large steel lifting handles.
From the very start, the Project has placed great emphasis on proper care and maintenance of the equipment. These aspects are instilled into the Peruvian staff during the training course which prepares them to be trainers of farmers and users of video. There can be no doubt that the successful and relatively trouble-free work with video in the field in Peru stems from this thorough foundation given to all the staff.
In addition, however, there is a very good maintenance unit in the Project. The availability in Peru of people with the basic qualifications to work with electronic apparatus was an advantage that would not be found in every Third World country. Certainly, a Project such as CESPAC must foresee the need for specialised training of maintenance staff in working with the specific type and brand of equipment the project uses. However, it would be too much to expect such a project to train electronic technicians ab initio.
The quantities of equipment in the Project over the years have been as follow.
| 1975 - 78 | 1978 - 81 | 1982 - 1985 | |
| Field Recording Units | 3 (B & W) | 5 (3 B & W, 2 Col.) | 9 (Colour)* |
| Editing Suites | 1 | 2 | 5* |
| Field Playback Units | 8 | 45 (B & W & Col.) | 115 |
* One of these is BVU i.e. broadcast quality
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