Know Zone

Kenya's first ever children's educational television programme aims to bring first-class entertainment and education directly into the homes and lives of Kenyan children and their families.

KnowZone airs in Kenya throughout 2009 on Citizen TV on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5.30pm, with a Family Omnibus on Saturdays from 5-6pm and is supported by weekly mail-out leaflets and a website www.knowzone.co.ke

The series aims to raise the educational standards of young Kenyans by improving their grasp of key literacy and numeracy syllabus requirements. KnowZone will also equip the audience with indispensable life-skill messages ranging from information about children’s rights and responsibilities to key health concepts and ideas. And in Kenya’s changing socio-political environment the programme also be addresses issues such as ethnicity, peace building and diversity.

Growing from Mediae’s successful “edutainment” drama series for adults - Makutano Junction – KnowZone uses Mediae’s proven ability to support literacy, numeracy and life-skills’ learning through a combination of drama, story telling, animation and studio-based programmes, backed up with interactive support materials.

During the course of every KnowZone programme, audiences are invited to Text-message Mediae from their mobiles if they would like a fun work sheet detailing more, critical information on the key issues covered, or if they wish to interact with the show on other issues.

The primary target audience is 8 - to 12-year-olds (Classes 4 - 6) alongside their parents and caregivers. The intention is to encourage parents to watch the Know Zone with their children - research has proven that this greatly improves the child’s learning and retention of educational TV.

Primary School Teachers comprise a secondary audience; Mediae’s formative research of KnowZone pilot material strongly indicated that teachers are keen to use the series to inform innovative teaching practices and for appropriate in-service training.

Children in Kenya (and Uganda) up until Class 3 (approx. 8 years old) are taught either in one of many local vernacular languages depending on their location and English language is taught as a subject. However from Class 4 onwards there is a dramatic switch: all lessons are suddenly taught in English and all exams (apart from Swahili) are set in English. As a result of this switch children whose English skills have not developed adequately are left floundering and unable to follow their lessons or exams – leading to very high rates of failure and drop-out.

KnowZone has therefore been designed subtly but closely to enrich the Class 4 Kenyan primary school syllabus. Although it is firmly based in an entertainment format designed to keep audiences returning week after week, every programme carefully incorporates the key English vocabulary, grammar and phrases, mathematics and life skills children need to succeed in class and in life.

Mediae has linked with London’s Institute of Education in an on-going piece of research to assess the impact and efficacy of programmes with audiences in Kenya.