Better journalism programs pushed for Cebu schools

CEBU, Philippines - After a gathering of members of the academe and personalities of media entities in Cebu, the Cebu Association of Communication Educators (CACE) has assured that they will further push for better mass communication and journalism curricula in their respective schools.

Nestor Ramirez, president of CACE, said that the inputs that were extended by the members of the media have been very helpful.

“The inputs are really good because they are rooted in the actual experience of the industry when we send our interns to the different media entities,” said Ramirez, who explained that their goal for having the dialogue is “to improve journalism.”

Yvonne Chua, of the Commission on Higher Education’s (CHED) Technical Committee on Journalism, gave an overview of the journalism education in the Philippines.

Chua shared the various integrations that journalism schools should already be making considering innovations like that of social media. Chua also stressed on the importance of the synergy between the academe and media practitioners to further strengthen the industry.

“Kailangan may blend ng academics and practitioners. Kasi ang academics need to provide the theory, the grounding, in why we are doing journalism. But we need the practitioners for the professional skill.”

Chua added that under CHED, schools are required to have at least four courses on communication.

But she encouraged the educators to pursue more communication courses for their schools as well as to implement the new program for journalism that has been approved by the CHED in 2010.

Isolde Amante, editor in chief of Sun Star Daily and the one tasked to give the assessment of the skills of graduates and interns in behalf of the media industry, emphasized on the need to strengthen the skills of students in planning ,reporting, organizing, writing and revising stories which are basic requirements for journalism internship programs.

Further, Ramirez assured that they will take in all the insights of the media practitioners as well as push for a stronger link between the academe and the media industry.

“The two stakeholders, academe and the industry, are very important collaborators. Logically before a journalist becomes a practitioner they go to school. Later on, they go to the academe. But as time goes by, this link has been forgotten and taken for granted.”

Ramirez said that the effort now is to bring the two together, to tie up and to strengthen the link and to have more activities that will focus on the organization of the journalism students.

The dialogue, brought by the Embassy of Canada, between the academe and the Cebu media industry was part of the activities slated for the Cebu Press Freedom Week celebration. — (FREEMAN)