BUJUMBURA June 21st (ABP) – The Vice Chancellor of the University of Lake Tanganyika, Mr. Evariste Ngayimpenda, proceeded, on Monday, June 19, 2023, to the opening of a capacity building workshop for universities for the professionalization of media training offers. These are the University of Burundi, the University of Lake Tanganyika and the Light University of Bujumbura.
According to Mr. Ngayimpenda, the workshop was organized to reflect on training offers in journalism, communication and audio-visual, meeting the needs of the journalism profession.
He also specified that the beneficiaries of that training are partner universities of the Media Professionalization Support Project (PAPROM). These universities, he pointed out, have more opportunities to strengthen the existing and innovate in this field of training. He added that academicians and professionals, accompanied by experts in the making of models will converge towards the same goal to train enthusiastic and competent journalists capable of working with effectiveness, efficiency and relevance, in an increasingly pluralistic society.
Taking the floor, the director of the Center for Analysis and Interdisciplinary Research on Development in the Great Lakes Region (CARID-RGL), Mr. François Xavier Mureha, called on the leaders of those three universities to seek competent teachers to that the students can have the basic endowment to meet the needs of the profession.
He asked them to look for ways for trainers so that the students have a good knowledge of basic theoretical studies for geography, history and law courses.
During the presentation, Mrs. Monique Kayibanda, professor at the University of Burundi, who presented on the theme “Comparative analysis of training offers in journalism and communication”, indicated that training in journalism and communication aims to provide students with basic knowledge that enables them to develop the personal and technical skills necessary to work in the field of communication.
She recalled that the media communication course constitutes the training framework intended for students who have chosen to pursue a career in the field, either of the print media, radio broadcasting, television or audiovisual.
She did not fail to point out some challenges to be met, in particular the absence of up-to-date data and knowledge and up-to-date documentation in the field of information and the media in Burundi, as well as the still limited specialized human resources in the information domain.