Country Infrastructure

In general, there never seems to be enough money for voter education. An in-depth assessment should be made of all the resources that are already available in a country's infrastructure. And that assessment usually includes the ways in which these resources can assist, or in their absence hinder, the programme. There are a number of specific areas voter educators will want to consider as they gather information about the country in which they are working:

The education system:  Understanding of the educational system will include basic information about the number and locations of primary, secondary and university-level institutions in order to identify possible voter education sites and target groups. An analysis of the national curriculum will identify whether there are existing educational materials and learner competencies that can serve as foundations for the voter education programme.

Mass media: A study of available mass media will provide both an analysis of available means of communications, their relative market share, characteristics of their audience, and the nature of their ownership, ie. public media outlets may be obligated under the law to provide free airtime for public service announcements such as voter education messages, while private media may or may not require payment. Power supply may also need to be taken into consideration as this will influence the choice and mix of media.

Delivery and distribution mechanisms: How will voter education messages be communicated, materials be delivered and distributed, trainers be deployed, and management and financial controls applied? Are there nationwide distribution networks? How reliable are these? What is the quality of the transportation infrastructure and what are the transportation options? Must distribution be handled on an ad hoc basis? Are there businesses or NGOs that could successfuly assume distribution responsibilities? Are there specific groups that could help with the distribution of targeted materials? 

Space:  Since voter education involves both dissemination of information through the media and gathering people to participate in group learning, voter educators may want to assess what public facilities are available for people to meet, which locations are best suited to the types of techniques being employed (such as role playing), and the conditions under which people are accustomed to meeting. Special arrangements may also need to be made to reserve this space or to notify local officials of its use for voter education purposes. Lodging may also need to be found for trainers or those participating in training programs.

Additional Advantages 

Knowledge of the country's or region's infrastructure may help identify a range of possible sites for voter education, introduce individuals and organizations to the programme, establish any regional and cultural differentiation which may need to be taken into account, and possibly identify certain marginal or high-risk areas where greater effort is required. It will be essential to document this assessment in a way that is useful to planners. As such, it should be brief, analytical, straight-forward, and easy to communicate. Much of the information may be readily available. If it is not, however, planners will have to weigh the costs of obtaining the information against the benefits of having it. In some cases, illustrative or intuitive overviews may be more useful for the purpose of planning voter education programmes.

How To Find Information

Certain government agencies may routinely need information about a country. They may be responsible for development, planning, or communications. Besides gathering such information, they may also be responsible for distributing it. Nationwide companies such as banks, mining companies, and large manufacturers are also likely to maintain such information. Some countries also publish yearbooks or other annual reports. And a number of NGOs, both domestic and international, and other organizations may also do the same.
Other Uses for Country Information.

An electoral authority can make use of country information in a variety of ways. Because of this, it may already have collected the information. If this is the case, the voter educators' task will be made easier. The interests of the various planners and administrators in the electoral authority may be different, however, than those of civil society organizations. As such, voter educators in the latter cannot abdicate responsibility for preparing a country briefing suitable for their own programme. Such a briefing can be distributed to agencies taking on sections of the voter education programme, to NGOs being encouraged to develop programmes of their own, and, with modifications, to international education agencies and observer groups.

Educational System

The educational system of a country is one of the most important resources available to voter educators. Whatever system exists in a country, voter educators will want to consider the resources available to them in terms of curriculum, training opportunities, staff and volunteer recruitment pools, as well as possible learning sites.

National Education System

An educational system includes both formal and informal educational institutions at the primary, secondary, and university level. Formal institutions are those conducting, either privately or on behalf of the state, a graded curriculum that results in a state-recognised certificate, diploma, or degree that might also have international currency. Informal institutions are those conducting shorter vocational, professional developmental and personal enrichment programmes that are not necessarily recognized by the state even though they may issue certificates of successful completion. Such certificates may be recognised by a professional or vocational association. The gap between formal and informal education is often one of scope.

Primary education consists of the basic educational grades normally offered to children in a compulsory system. Secondary education, often called high school, will generally include a more differentiated curriculum in preparation for graduation and perhaps college matriculation. Finally, higher education includes colleges and universities, as well as vocational and technical education. Often these institutions combine a series of formal courses with a range of less formal educational opportunities. In some educational systems, vocational and technical training may be offered at any one of these levels of education. In addition, there may be a variety of continuing education and training opportunities, particularly in countries that have substantial private or civil society sectors.

Some countries have an articulated educational system regulated through a national certification framework. In these countries, education and training throughout the myriad institutions considered above might enable people to move around the system and achieve certificates and integrated educational opportunities. In other countries, the systems are more rigid and the various institutions determine progress and outcomes independently.

Curriculum

There will need to be consideration of whether the educational system provides universal opportunities for people to learn about government, politics, voting behaviour, or general societal rules and standards. If this is the case, educators will have to assess whether this will replace any part of an informal voter education programme for adults or whether the formal curriculum has been designed to reduce or inhibit people's participation in democratic activity.

In many cases, primary and secondary education will have provided skills, attitudes and knowledge that provide a foundation for more detailed education in support of democracy or elections. In some cases, however, national education systems may have been forged to ensure support for a regime that is not democratic and where difference is not welcomed. In such cases, primary and secondary education may have left a heritage that severely compromises people's ability to engage in democratic behaviour: whether resolving differences, making decisions, voting, or participating in democratic institutions. In situations like this, voter and civic education programmes may have to be extensive.

Training Opportunities

Educators operating in election and civic spheres face considerable handicaps in obtaining training for themselves or finding trained colleagues. In fact, the majority of people working in this field enter it laterally with either a social science, political or a general educational background. Because adult education often includes work with disadvantaged people, and because overcoming disadvantage requires political action at various levels, such people may enter the field more readily.

The education system of a country will provide these informal training paths, and may also provide more formal training paths to a greater or lesser degree, depending not only on the extent that the country has a consolidated democracy, but also on the extent that the system interacts with social movements and evolving learner needs. It is interesting to note that some of the most vital training opportunities, and the most innovative programmes, are available in countries that have marginal democracies and intense social conflicts.

Those responsible for developing educators will want to discover training opportunities within the system and, where necessary, supplement these with short term informal training on the job.

Staff and Volunteer Recruitment Pools

Voter education programmes require large numbers of staff over a very short period of time. At the most, these personnel may receive orientation about the material available in conjunction with limited adult education skills. In large programmes, having a pool of trained teachers from whom to draw at short notice is obviously advantageous. There is a caveat, however. Formal education demands certain types of skills and behaviour. There is often a gap between the classroom and the voter education site that not all teachers are able to comprehend.

So educators will want to look carefully at the educational system in order to identify what levels of the system provide the most likely candidates for their programme. They will also note the dates of formal system terms of matriculation, including examination schedules, so that unrealistic expectations are not created about the extent to which teachers and instructors from formal systems can move into the voter education programme.

Learning Sites

Almost as important as obtaining staff and volunteer recruits will be obtaining cheap and accessible sites for conducting the voter education programme. Apart from those aspects of the programme that capitalize on bringing it to places where there are large groups of people, there will also be aspects of the programme that require seminar and conference room facilities (e.g. training of educators, workshops and briefings, preparation of materials, and running of focus groups). Educational institutions, whether private or state-funded, can often be made available at low cost. In some cases, they may also provide residential facilities for extended programmes.

Once again, as with other aspects of voter education programmes, there may need to be a balancing of the costs and convenience against public perceptions of some or all of these institutions.

Venue for Education Events

Voter educators will have to find and secure venues for a wide variety of activities. Doing this introduces a number of issues related to the costs and administration of their programmes.

Cascade training, press conferences, coalition meetings for a voter education consortium, voter education workshops, election briefings, planning sessions, community gatherings, televised debates or discussions, music festivals, drama rehearsals and productions, and mock elections are just some of the kinds of meetings or events likely to take place as part of a voter education programme. And educators will be competing for meeting space with every other participant in the election, including political parties, election administrators, NGOs, and the press.

It is often surprising how difficult it becomes to obtain public venues - to identify them, book them, obtain them at low cost, and keep them available when the programme is still in development but may require them at some point in the future. It is also likely to be a challenge to find a space appropriate to the needs of a particular activity. A conference, role-playing exercize, televised event, dramatic production, or planning session are likely to require different types of spaces. For some, theatre style seating may be fine. For others, educators may need to move furniture around to encourage participation. Or an interesting backdrop, open floor space, lots of table space for coallating materials, or multiple power outlets may be required.

Even those countries that have large tourist and convention industries may have venue problems outside tourist resorts in more isolated or less congenial parts of the country. There may even be competition in resort areas if elections are being conducted at times when conventions are in town. So early access to a reliable team of people who can be creative in their search for suitable venues is essential.

Amongst the less obvious venues, and certainly outside the normal experience of professional travel agents, are church and religious assemblies and retreat centres, camps, educational institutions, fairgrounds, and sports fields. Where venues are needed with overnight accommodation, they are even more difficult to find unless it is possible to arrange hospitality with local people.

Such alternative sites, however, are often difficult to reserve from a distance, and payment, where required, is often on a cash basis. So having local contacts and having to carry large amounts of money may conflict with the centralized and administratively convenient systems that national voter education organizations and election authorities often put in place.

Hotels and commercial conference centres become the preferred educational venues, rather than the public spaces that will ensure the events operate from a community base and with community support. Unless it is possible to persuade the owners of such venues to donate their use, voter education programme costs can balloon and discourage organizers from conducting public events.

Communication Mechanisms

Countries are not uniform in their abilities to communicate internally or between one another. During the twentieth century, advances in communication technology went through a number of waves, and while all previous advances remain in place, countries place different degrees of reliance on them and have different needs and limitations.

It is important that educators do understand the communications logistics in a particular country and do not attempt to establish programmes that rely on high technology systems, for instance that cannot be maintained or even implemented. At the same time, because technology tends to overlap, it results in some strange arrangements. Developing countries, for example, may leapfrog over developed countries, as some have in the use of mobile or cellular telephones or fax machines in recent years. And e-mail may be more reliable and available than traditional postal services.

In addition to communications messages, educators will also have to move people and materials. Unfortunately these do not yet travel down a telephone line, although even this is changing. [1] So educators must also understand the transportation infrastructure.

Moving People

What facilities exist to bring people into the country? In most places this will include international airports. In some, like St Helena, a harbour may be the only port of entry. And, more importantly, what facilities exist for moving people around inside the country? Are there local airlines? And do these connect with other forms of transport? If not airlines, is there a train system? Or are there domestic bus services connecting towns and cities? Within a town or region, is there public transport such as buses, subways or cable cars. Are taxis an option? And what condition are all these systems in? In some countries, there may be two separate transportation systems, private and state (including military forces). Educators will want to know which of these they will have to use or whether both are available. And what about remote locations? Will helicopters be required, for example, to take people into mountainous villages?

If primarily reliant on travelling by road, what is the conidition of the country's road system and how will this affect the amount of time needed to travel from one place to another? In some countries, traveling 240 kilometres (200 miles) may take two hours on a freeway. In others it may take all day. And how many miles of freeway are there? To what extent will travel need to be undertaken on narrow or poorly paved roads? Are certain roads impassable in bad weather, and what weather is to be expected during the operation? Are there appropriate motor vehicles available for purchase or hire? What condition are they in? How will the availability and price of fuel affect tranport?

Moving Goods

Moving goods can be as easy or as problematic as moving people. Virtually all of the considerations outlined above will also need to be taken into account with respect to bulk materials. In many cases, small amounts of material can travel with educators. But larger quantities of material will require freight services, and weight and space requirements will need to be taken into account. Freight services may be provided by sea, river, road, rail, or air. Each has its advantages and disadvantages; and costs will need to be weighed in terms of speed and reliability.

Moving Messages

Educators may consider the following possibilities for conveying messages that assist them in managing their programmes:

Oral transmission:

Very simply, messages can be passed on from person to person. In some circumstances, in fact, this may be essential. Where it is, the skills necessary to craft memorable messages and to recall these will have to be developed. Societies that have shifted away from such oral traditions may have to rely heavily on individuals linked to more traditional societies. Where literacy can be taken for granted, written messages can be conveyed by hand.

Postal services:

Postal services are not uniform. For educators, such services must be reliable. In many countries, but not all, there is a single government-owned or controlled postal service. The service usually includes receiving, transmission, and delivery of letters, bulk post and parcels. All of these may to some extent differ in reliability, service, and cost from country to country. They may also vary in the extent to which they remain part of a single monopoly service.

Educators will have to consider the extent to which recipients can obtain the post that is sent to them. Many rural communities do not have postal deliveries and must collect mail from depots. Often this can mean that a separate message must be sent alerting the recipient to the arrival of the postal item.

Where postal services have been degraded, theft, loss and delay can seriously affect critical programmes such as voter education.

In any case, the postal service normally remains one of the most cost-effective systems available.

Radio:

Radio networks can vary from the transmitter/receiver systems typically used by the police, military, rural communities and freight haulers to commercial broadcasting stations capable of conveying messages to large numbers of people with easily available commercial radios. Radio is capable of two-way communication across extensive distances. Because of the importance of this mode of communication in environments where other systems may not be available, it should be considered an essential part of an election management strategy that educators can use. And educators will want to consider ways they can use studio-based radio and television conferencing facilities that are available in some countries.

Telephone:

The telephone may be the most critical tool for communication in managing voter education programmes. It can also provide a potential educational medium itself. So an understanding of the possibilities and limitations of the existing telephone system is essential.

In particular, educators will want to know about the availability of "land lines", instruments such as handsets and PABX's, regional exchanges, and alternatives to land lines such as cellular systems or even satellite instruments. With respect to cellular systems, terrain may also be an important consideration that affects range.

In some countries, there is difficulty laying the necessary copper cabling. In others, fibre optic lines are being introduced. In some, manual exchanges and rotary dial telephones are all that exist. Other countries combine these with more advanced systems that may or may not be compatible with the older systems. Separate fax lines may exist, or fax machines may use existing lines.

Computer:

With the arrival of the Internet, and with it Internet service providers, electronic mail (e-mail), and other services have become available at least to those who have access to a computer, telephone and modem. The pervasiveness of the Internet, however, has obscured the fact that electronic mail and file transfer programmes can be used on much smaller and slower telephone and computer systems. E-mail is not synonymous with the World Wide Web. [2] It is entirely possible to set up an e-mail system using slow modems, pulse telephones and DOS-based computers. Obviously, those who have access to fast computers, modems and telephone lines will have access to the Web and to the facilities available there.

Computer-based technology:

As communication technology becomes more integrated, telephone and computer systems are providing managers with a range of additional facilities that enhance productivity and, where the basic infrastructure and maintenance skills exist, reduce costs. Amongst these are the ability to fax directly from the computer to one recipient or to broadcast to a group of people, the ability to use the Internet for chat sessions or telephone services, and the ability to use video conferencing for a small group of people in different locations.

On the telephone side, automated calling and voice mail systems capable of providing callers with touch tone options to obtain messages or fax documents are providing ways of making telephones more like the World Wide Web. At its most basic, the Web provides a way to deposit information and have the user collect it when required rather than have to have a real-time communication.

All these options are available to educators in societies with advanced communication systems. Each country will have to investigate just what is available to them when they begin to plan their programmes.

Technology and Tradition

While modern telecommunications and computer technologies may be increasing the range of communication options open to educators, cultural considerations about their use will still come into play. The population at large, or some groups in particular, may be suspicious of or uncomfortable with certain modern technologies. There may be some that they consider, for whatever reason, inappropriate for educational purposes or elections.

Notes:

[1] Countries with good telecommunications systems and reliable electricity can make use of video conferencing facilities to get people in touch with one another without having to move them around. Originally this required access to a television studio and broadcast system: but the Internet is increasingly establishing possibilities which are low cost and desktop bound. As far as documents go, e-mail and desktop publishing options make it possible for documents to be sent electronically and then reproduced rather than freighted.

[2] The World Wide Web with its high resolution graphics and home pages is most often though of when people speak of the Internet - but other smaller and older software packages are available for electronic communication across the net.

Importance of Mass Media in Education Programmes

Without good access to national and community media all public education programmes may be disadvantaged. It is possible to consider programmes that rely entirely on face-to-face education, but even these can be hindered if there is not a supplementary programme of advertising for events and news coverage to increase motivation as well as printed material to "leave behind." As such, assessment of available media options should be conducted.

Media Directories

In some countries, media registration may have resulted in a publicly-available directory. In others, NGOs and government media agencies may have collected such information. Or advertising agencies may keep books that give details on media outlets, including their market share and target audiences.

Early on, educators may want to develop a "brainstorm" list and subsequently their own directory, that analyzes available media outlets in terms appropriate to voter education programming. Criteria they may want to use include:

• Is the media owned or controlled by the government?
• If controlled by the government, is it obligated under election law to provide free space or airtime for voter education messages?
• If privately owned, is the management ammenable to running public service announcements, such as voter education messages either free of charge or at a discounted rate?
• What are the published advertizing rates of the outlet?
• Is the media national or community-based?
• Is the particular medium capable of preparing its own copy or producing its own spots?
• What is the policy and the protocol of the particular medium for taking spots or copy prepared by the education programme?
• In what format must spots or copy prepared by the education programme be presented to the media outlet in question?
• What is the outlet's market share, ie. what is the size of its viewing or listening audience or readership?
• What are the characteristics of its audience?
• How are the size or characteristics of the audience affected by date and time and by programming, ie.what are the most popular shows or are papers read more during the week or at week-ends?
• How many hours does the outlet broadcast per day?
• What is the print schedule, ie. twice daily, daily, several times per week, weekly, monthly, per quarter?
• Does the outlet's editorial board have a particular political orientation, or is the outlet associated in any way with a specific political party?
• In what languages does the outlet broadcast/print?
• Who are the contacts for the particular media and what is the street address, phone number, fax number, and e-mail address.

An adequate database will need to be prepared for this information. Because of its importance, educators will also want to cultivate expertize within their own teams in this field and, in addition, develop appropriate contacts amongst outside practitioners.

Power Supply and Other Commodities

Particularly in transitional settings, educators will want to take note of any shortages or disruptions in the supply of valuable commodies such as electricity, gas, paper or ink. If power is in short supply, it may not make much sense to invest in pricey television commercials. Radio may still be an option, however, as radios can be operated on battery power. In such circumstances, print and direct contact may take on an increasingly important role. Educators will also need to take into consideration how power shortages or interruptions may affect production processes: if service providers do not have an independent and reliable power source very often this will extend the amount of time required for production. If paper or ink are difficult to obtain, then print activities may need to be de-emphasized. Even where these supplies exists, fuel shortages might hinder the ability to deliver and distribute print materials. Thus, educators must assess the availability of key commodities and the impact that these will have on the types and mix of media used.

Careful Planning and Assessment

Countries with vibrant media infrastructures are essential to the development of democracy. To the extent that voter education can enhance this by careful selection and promotion of media, it will have long-term impact for future programmes.