Over the years, UNESCO has taken various initiatives in improving the quality of journalism education worldwide.
UNESCO is the lead UN agency in promoting freedom of expression and universal access to information and knowledge. It recognizes the important role journalism schools play in preparing future journalists who would facilitate the free exchange of information and knowledge through mass media. The free and equitable access to information and knowledge is an essential element for empowering people and ensuring their participation in knowledge societies. There has been an increased recognition of the crucial role of journalism in promoting democracy, and this has created an urgent demand for well-trained journalists.
Over the years, UNESCO has taken various initiatives in improving the quality of journalism education worldwide. UNESCO has also received numerous requests, mostly from developing countries and emerging democracies, to provide technical expertise in the design of journalism education curriculum. In December 2005, in response to numerous requests from Member States for help in the design of journalism education curricula, UNESCO convened an experts’ consultative meeting in Paris. Major outputs of the consultation were the identification of courses, which should be included in a journalism curriculum.
A team of four UNESCO experts, commissioned for the initial development of the journalism education curricula initiative, solicited a response to their first draft from twenty senior journalism educators who were deemed to have considerable experience working in developing countries and emerging democracies. Their responses proved to be essential for the establishment of appropriate and applicable curricula. The revised draft design thus featured a list of courses for both undergraduate and post-graduate levels, a brief description of each course and an outline of fundamental journalism competencies. Journalism instructors with experience working in developing countries or emerging democracies were then carefully selected from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America to write the syllabuses for seventeen core courses. The draft curricula was reviewed at a second experts’ consultative meeting at UNESCO in Paris, selecting a number of model syllabuses to qualify the document for formal presentation to the
World Journalism Education Congress in June 2007 in Singapore.
Our hope is that journalism schools and individual instructors everywhere will find inspiration and assistance from these curricula. We know that journalism, and the educational programmes that enable individuals to practice and upgrade their journalistic skills, are essential tools for the underpinning of key democratic principles that are fundamental to the development of every country.
UNESCO is the lead UN agency in promoting freedom of expression and universal access to information and knowledge. It recognizes the important role journalism schools play in preparing future journalists who would facilitate the free exchange of information and knowledge through mass media. The free and equitable access to information and knowledge is an essential element for empowering people and ensuring their participation in knowledge societies. There has been an increased recognition of the crucial role of journalism in promoting democracy, and this has created an urgent demand for well-trained journalists.
Over the years, UNESCO has taken various initiatives in improving the quality of journalism education worldwide. UNESCO has also received numerous requests, mostly from developing countries and emerging democracies, to provide technical expertise in the design of journalism education curriculum. In December 2005, in response to numerous requests from Member States for help in the design of journalism education curricula, UNESCO convened an experts’ consultative meeting in Paris. Major outputs of the consultation were the identification of courses, which should be included in a journalism curriculum.
A team of four UNESCO experts, commissioned for the initial development of the journalism education curricula initiative, solicited a response to their first draft from twenty senior journalism educators who were deemed to have considerable experience working in developing countries and emerging democracies. Their responses proved to be essential for the establishment of appropriate and applicable curricula. The revised draft design thus featured a list of courses for both undergraduate and post-graduate levels, a brief description of each course and an outline of fundamental journalism competencies. Journalism instructors with experience working in developing countries or emerging democracies were then carefully selected from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America to write the syllabuses for seventeen core courses. The draft curricula was reviewed at a second experts’ consultative meeting at UNESCO in Paris, selecting a number of model syllabuses to qualify the document for formal presentation to the
World Journalism Education Congress in June 2007 in Singapore.
Our hope is that journalism schools and individual instructors everywhere will find inspiration and assistance from these curricula. We know that journalism, and the educational programmes that enable individuals to practice and upgrade their journalistic skills, are essential tools for the underpinning of key democratic principles that are fundamental to the development of every country.
