BUJUMBURA July 7th (ABP) – The training program for students of the 1st promotion in the journalism and communication department of the University of Burundi at the baccalaureate level is drawing near to the end, the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Prof. Gélase Nimbona, told a check by ABP on Tuesday July 5, 2022.
According to Professor Nimbona, all the necessary arrangements have been made to ensure that this program meets the training requirements in the fields of journalism and communication. Launched during the 2019-2020 academic year, the first promotion in the Journalism and Communication department is in the 3rd year of the Baccalaureate and the Faculty is preparing to issue the diplomas to the finalists no later than October 2022.
This academic training program aims mainly to compensate for the lack of journalists who are qualified in the field. The last promotion of the School of Journalism (ECOJO) dates back to 1991, when all higher education facilities were integrated into the Ministry in charge of Higher Education and Scientific Research. After the closure of that school, media managers found themselves in the obligation of resorting to graduates from other training courses who subsequently learned the trade on the job.
Currently, many professional journalists, finalists of the ECOJO have been admitted to retirement while others are drawing near. Mr. Nimbona further notes that FLSH’s Journalism and Communications training tracks are specifically aimed at producing journalists and communicators competent enough to work both nationally and internationally.
He added that the training prepares students for both profession and research. Thus, for example, the model of courses for the journalism sector provides for certain courses such as English, Methodology of research in information sciences, Intercultural communication, Online journalism, Multimedia, Socio-economics of the media, Entrepreneurship and IT applied to journalism.
As a reminder, the results of a study on the implementation of the gender-sensitive media charter conducted in April 2020 have just revealed several training needs in the Burundian media world. These include improving skills in program production and hosting, information gathering and processing, conflict-sensitive journalism and web-based journalism.
It should be mentioned that the duration of the training course for the two training tracks (Journalism and Communication) is three years with the possibility for students to continue studies in the Master’s and doctoral programs.