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Education Makes News! workshop
UNESCO
July 11, 2005

http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=19337&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

Journalists from Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and the host Zimbabwe attended recently a workshop entitled "Education Makes News!". The workshop that run concurrently with Zimbabwe's celebration of the Education for All (EFA) Week familiarized journalists with EFA's Goals and objectives.

The workshop also studied the linkages of the concepts of communication and education using the UNESCO produced Education for All media training resource kit, which comes in resource-packed CD-Rom and print versions, the works reporting on education and encouraging wider media coverage of EFA issues and goals.

The four-day workshop that was held from 28 June to 1st July, was a joint activity of UNESCO and the Zimbabwe National Commission for UNESCO.

One of the goals of the workshop was to remind journalists of the need to give the coverage of educational issues the importance it deserves. It has been observed worldwide that in the daily scramble for news education is often marginalized. Education needs more coverage.

It is accepted that there is a greater need to dig deeper in reporting on education, to nurture and sustain the understanding of and interest in educational policies and issues among the citizenly and governments which have already undertaken international commitments on the eradication of illiteracy. Therefore there is the need to keep political leadership as well as the public opinion on their toes.

Journalists attending the workshop also helped to evaluate the kit, which is being be rolled out on a larger scale to countries around the world, targeting media professionals and also educational stakeholders such as policy makers, politicians, NGOs and teachers.

Taking advantage of the presence of the journalists from the sub region several side events have also been organised, most importantly a workshop on Journalist's safety measures facilitated by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) and a session on the role of the community media in promoting democracy and good governance using Mozambique as a case study.

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