Page 93 - Universitas Terbuka Center of Excellence In Asia 2010 and The World 2020 (A Journey Towards a Leading Open and Distance Education Institution 1984-2008)

Tutorial by Radio

Considering the cost and financial limitation of most Indonesian students ,

radio is the alternative inexpensive media with high accessibility. Since 1985, UT
had utilized rad io broadcast as media for tutorials in limited scale, which was
once a week with the duration of 25 minutes. Gradually broadcasting time was

increased so that in 1991 UT tutorials were broadcasted once a day from Monday

to Friday. Then in 1997, UT programs in cooperation with Radio Republik
Indonesia or RRI could be broadcasted 3 times a day (Monday-Friday) which
were in the morning (8 .1 Oam) , in the afternoon (5.1 Opm), and in the evening

(1 0.1 Opm). Then in the period of 2000-2005, UT radio program were reduced to 2
times a day (Monday-Saturday) caused by the change of RRI's organization

status from government own institution to public corporation . It was realized that
the utilization of this media was not optimum yet, but the efforts had been made

by sending six months broadcasting schedule for individual student periodically,
while the programs were also accessible through UT website .

The number of radio programs broadcasted was considered modest
compared to the number of courses UT offered which were around 400 courses.

Students often complained about this . But considering UT dependence on other
institutions, in this case RRI , there was little that could be done. Realizing this

UT also cooperated with local radio stations to broadcast its radio programs . This ·
cooperation had been attempted by the Regional Offices which functioned as UT

branch offices in 36 cities of 27 provinces around Indonesia. Although this
cooperation had been instigated since 1996, only 9 Regional Offices including

Banda Aceh, Padang, Palembang , Palu , Semarang , Malang , Purwokerto,
Mataram, and Kupang could accomplish the cooperation , which unsatisfactorilly

resulted in limited broadcast time allotments (Huda , Padmo & Kurniati,2000) .

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