How can we make religious equality a reality for those on the margins of society and politics? This book is about the individual and collective struggles of the religiously marginalised to be recognised and their inequalities, religious or otherwise, redressed. It is also about the efforts of civil society, governments, multilateral actors, and scholars to promote freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) whatever shape they take. The actors and contexts that feature in this book are as diverse as health workers in Israel, local education authorities in Nigeria, indigenous movements in India, Uganda, or South Africa, and multilateral actors such as the Islamic Development Bank in Sudan and the World Bank in Pakistan. Some of the case studies engage with development discourses and narratives or are undertaken by development actors, while other cases operate completely outside the international development paradigm. These case studies present some important insights, which while highly relevant for their contexts also draw out important insights for academics, practitioners, activists, and others who have an interest in redressing religious inequalities for socioeconomically marginalised populations.

Although teachers’ and students’ ICT skills have previously been investigated, there is still scant information about their ICT skills in relation to audio media as an independent medium of in- struction. This study, therefore, investigates the ICT skills of higher education distance students (HEDS) and teachers regarding the use of audio media. We used purposive sampling technique to select HEDS (n=81) and teachers (n=41). Data were collected using a structured questionnaire. The results indicate that on average, teachers’ and students’ levels of confidence regarding com- puter use are 76% and 68% respectively. The results on general ICT knowledge indicate that 52% of students rated themselves as having either good or excellent ICT skills compared to 49% of teachers. The results also show that both students and teachers use MP3 players on a regular basis. However, results reveal that they are ambivalent regarding recording and editing of audio content. Generally, the findings of this study demonstrate that teachers and students can adopt audio media in distance education. Key words: audio media, ICT skills, distance education, medium of instruction, Moodle platform

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<p class="0BodyText"><strong></strong>Although audio media has been presented by previous research as a suitable medium for conveying agricultural information, there is limited research in assessing its effectiveness in assisting farmers’ gain agricultural knowledge. This study thus undertook to carry out that investigation by involving 1000 smallholder banana farmers in the study which involved a baseline survey, an intervention, and an end line survey. The preliminary survey results showed that 456 farmers had relevant knowledge of farming practices and were removed from the study. However, 541 farmers were lacking the required knowledge regarding proper banana farming practices. This group was assigned to an intervention of radio broadcasts for one month. All broadcasted content was recorded on CDs and circulated to the participants for continued revision. This was followed by the end line survey and the two datasets were compared to establish the change in knowledge levels of the farmers. The tests of variances before the intervention and after the intervention indicated that the two groups being compared are assumed to be approximately equal (p &gt;0.05). Results showed a significant difference in the mean knowledge scores before and after the intervention. Furthermore, independent t-test results reveal a statistically significant difference in the pre- and post-knowledge tests of farmers. In addition, results from Pearson Correlations show that farmers’ characteristics such as age, gender, and level of education do not influence the uptake of knowledge on farming practices by farmers. However, results reveal a statistically significant association between the source of information (Radio Broadcast &amp; audio CDs) and knowledge gain regarding most banana farming practices by farmers. This study provides further evidence that audio media in the form of radio broadcasts and audio CDs is a vital source for agricultural information to the rural farmers. Moreover, it can be concluded that farmers’ characteristics do not influence knowledge gain for banana farming practices when audio media is used as a medium of information dissemination. And thus, audio media remains a vital source of information for resource-poor farmers and can greatly enhance their agricultural knowledge when audio media is used as an intervention.<em> </em></p>