The Takalani Sesame Project, an initiative of the Sesame Workshop, with funding from USAID and Sanlam, is a multimedia and multi-lingual educational programme that includes a television series, a series of radio programmes, and an outreach programme that features a print component. In February 2004, the South African Broadcast Corporation (SABC) contracted Khulisa Management Services and READ Educational Trust to evaluate the impact of Takalani Sesame Season II programme material on 3- to 6-year-old children who were not in structured preschool programmes.

Participants consisted of 175 children, 89 parents, and 20 caregivers (i.e., a Department of Education's Early Childhood Development (ECD) practitioner/teacher). The children lived in a South African rural setting and had no prior exposure to Takalani Sesame. Children in the experimental group received one of four interventions: (a) viewed 16 TV episodes without caregiver mediation; (b) viewed 16 TV episodes with caregiver mediation; (c) listened to 16 radio episodes without caregiver mediation, or (d) listened to 16 radio episodes with caregiver mediation. Mediation by caregivers involved supplementing the learning outcomes targeted during an episode with prescribed activities. Each caregiver was trained and provided with mediation materials. Children in a “control” group were not exposed to Takalani Sesame.

Researchers used both quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the programme's impact. Specifically, they carried out:

• interviews with parents and caregivers
• observations of learners and caregivers before, during and after the screening of the Takalani Sesame episodes
• learner performance pre- and post-tests measuring literacy, numeracy, and life skills, as well as HIV and AIDS knowledge.

A December 2005 external evaluation commissioned by the Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF) and carried out by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) and partners found that, "Although Takalani Sesame is primarily a children's programme, it achieves high awareness across all age groups." Specifically, among those surveyed, 73.0% of those aged 12-14 years (n = 1613), 70.5% of those aged 15-24 years (n = 4055), 61.3% of those aged 25-49 years (n = 5050), and 35.1% of those above 50 years (n = 2757) knew of Takalini Sesame. The researchers further noted that, "[While] Takalani Sesame [is] most likely to be known by English and Afrikaans language speakers...Venda and Tsonga home-language speakers do not appear to be unduly marginalized...." The report shows that a majority of respondents (aged 15 years and older) whose home language was Nguni, Sotho, Venda, or Tsonga were aware of the programme. The researchers conclude that "Takalani Sesame has a wide awareness across age groups and contexts, which is surprising given its emphasis on children..."

The evaluation also found links between exposure to Takalani Sesame and the extent to which caregivers and/or parents talked about HIV and AIDS in either the classroom or the home. At pre-test, equivalent proportions of caregivers in the experimental (20%) and control (25%) groups spoke about or taught HIV and AIDS in their classrooms. At post-test, more educators in the experimental group (80%) spoke about HIV and AIDS with the children than did those in the control group (48%).

Literacy, Numeracy, and Life Skills
Researchers found that the experimental group's knowledge scores increased significantly between the pre- and post-test, compared to the control group (whose scores were lower on the post-test). Significant learning gains were made in literacy, numeracy, and life skills, regardless of age (see Table 1). Compared with the control group, the experimental groups did better in literacy and life skills; the relatively small gain in numeracy skills was due to the fact that children who were exposed to radio episodes did not show enhanced numeracy skills. Researchers did not find this surprising, given that children were exposed to relatively little numeracy content in the radio programmes.

Table 1. Gains in Numeracy, Literacy, and Life Skills

The effectiveness of mediation varied depending on the medium and learning area: With television, mediation was most effective for numeracy; with radio, mediation helped in the areas of literacy and life skills.

Caregivers who were part of the mediation groups showed shifts from a 'show and tell' teaching methodology to more creative, experiential and interactive teaching methodologies. Most caregivers began to use positive reinforcement and were more creative in using materials as teaching aids.

HIV and AIDS Knowledge and Skills
At pre-test, the experimental group scored considerably lower than the control group on the areas of HIV and AIDS knowledge tested: basic knowledge, blood safety, discrimination, and coping with illness. However, by the post-test, the experimental group showed greater gains on all outcomes: a gain of 28% in the overall score, compared with an increase of 4% for the control group.

HIV and AIDS
Children were asked to identify how to treat a person with HIV and AIDS, with the alternatives "play with them", "laugh at them" or "run away from them". Within the experimental groups, average scores on these outcomes increased by 29%; in the control groups, the increase was only 5%.

Self-Esteem
Although the concept of self-esteem is not typical of the rural communities where the study took place (where inter-dependence is stressed over individualism), there was a significant increase in the percentage of children in the experimental groups who were able to answer the questions, "What makes you special?" (an increase of 43.6%, compared to 10.1% for the control group) and "What makes you different from someone else?" (an increase of 12.7%, compared to a decline of 21.1% for the control group).