Journalism instructors receive training on the information society
By Mercy Wambui, Communication Officer, ECA
15 August 2005

Journalism instructors from institutions based in Francophone Africa participated in a five-day workshop on Media and the Information Society. Held from 8-12 August 2005 in Yaounde, Cameroon, the training was the first in a series of “training of trainers” workshops organized by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) that will aim to integrate information society issues in Schools of Journalism.

Participants were drawn from the University of Yaounde II, l’Ecole Supérieure des Sciences des Techniques de l’information (ESSTIC) Cameroun, l’Institut Supérieur de l’Information, et de la Communication (ISIC) Morocco, Centre d’Etude des Sciences, des Techniques de l’Information (CESTI) Senegal, Centre de Formation, de l’URTNA (Ex-CIERRO) Burkina Faso and West African News Agency Development Center (WANAD) Benin.

In his remarks to the workshop, Mr. Thierry Amoussogbo, ECA’s Regional Advisor said that Journalists and other media practitioners need a range of knowledge and skills to equip them for better analysis of ICT and development issues. He also pointed out that training their instructors "is a first step towards enhancing the quality of their training on ICT issues and in the long run, will contribute to the media’s involvement in building Africa’s Information Society”.

The workshop was structured around the “African Information Society Initiative (AISI) Media Training Module” – developed by ECA to serve as a how-to guide on issues such as ICT policy development, infrastructure development, intellectual property rights and content development. Discussions also focused on integrating the issues into journalism curricula and developing new course work.

Acknowledging the importance of the training, Professor, Marc-Joseph Omgba, Director of ESSTIC, said, “In addition to basic training for journalists in communication, documentation, editing, public relations and advertisement, there is a need for capacity building on evolving information and knowledge issues in the Information Society.”

On his part, Professor Tabi Manga, Vice Chancellor, University of Yaounde II noted that Training Institutions need to "constantly update their knowledge and adapt accordingly".

Trainees went on site visits to report on the effectiveness of e-government applications by the Ministry of Works and Public Administration, whose finance and personnel management reform programmes are heavily dependent on ICT applications.

Commenting on the impact of the workshop, Mr. Adama Zongo, from Centre de formation de l’URTNA, Burkina Faso said the training "has made us aware of the importance of the role of journalists in the Information Society,” and added that the media represents a constituency whose value-added is to promote, sensitize and ensure greater awareness on all aspects of the information society so that people can make informed decisions.

Following the training, participants agreed to develop new courses that will offer credits to students as part of their basic journalism training. Short courses and workshops will also be offered for media professionals already in the field. The participants will share best practices and improve the modules on an ongoing basis through an existing "training of trainers network".

The workshop was co-sponsored by ECA, the Government of Cameroon and ECA’s partners, the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) and the German Government’s development agency Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ).

For more information and for testing out the media module online, contact Mercy Wambui, Communication Officer, mwambui@uneca.org or http://www.uneca.org/DISD