This meeting will assess journalism education in Latin America together with the challenges the profession is currently facing at regional and international levels, and will seek to identify a regional strategy to adapt UNESCO’s Model Curricula for Journalism Education in the Latin American context.

Communication scholars, deans and experts as well as media practitioners from 15 different countries will discuss UNESCO’s Model Curricula and provide inputs for its application in Latin American communication and journalism schools. Professor Michael Cobden of King’s College of Halifax (Canada), who coordinated the preparation of UNESCO’s Model Curricula for Journalism Education at the international level, and Alicia Casermeiro (Argentina), Vice-president of the Latin American Council for Quality-control in Journalism Education (CLAEP), are two of the international experts, who will open the meeting.

UNESCO’s Journalism Curricula is a generic model that can be adapted according to each country’s specific needs. It represents the core of any programme designed to prepare students for careers in journalism and to develop their professional skills, which involve methods of knowing and thinking as well as recording and representing.

The publication offers model curricula for three levels: a university bachelor’s degree (three years and four years); a two-year master’s degree (for students with and students without a journalism background); and a two-year diploma programme that may be taken as a basic preparation for journalism or as a bridge from secondary school to a university programme in journalism. To enrich the practical side, every programme should include an internship (or placement) at a news media outlet, and journalism schools should develop partnerships with local news media.

UNESCO’s Model Curricula for Journalism Education is a tool developed by the Organization as part of its efforts to improve the capacities of media training and journalism education institutions to reach high levels of excellence.