FROM LEFT: Asmaa Al Mohanadi, Jordi Torrent and Jan Keulen at the Doha Centre for Media Freedom press conference at Concorde Hotel in Doha yesterday. Kammutty VP
Doha: Media and Information Literacy (MIL) experts yesterday called on to incorporate media literacy programmes into school curricula in the region, at an event organised by the Doha Centre for Media Freedom (DCMF).
Media literacy experts from Qatar, Morocco, Egypt, Spain, Kuwait, Lebanon and Japan, among other nations, gathered to address some of the issues and challenges in launching media information and literacy programmes in the Arab world.
In a declaration adopted as part of combined efforts to promote media education throughout the Arab world, experts concluded that developing an understanding of the concept of MIL among education policy makers and other institutions is a major challenge in the region.
Experts said that many countries face difficulties as a result of socio-economic and political issues and a lack of political will from stakeholders. In countries where governments have created an enabling-environment for MIL education, initiatives launched by various organisations have seen successful.
In a set of recommendations, experts proposed to form a steering committee, comprising between six and 10 MIL experts, which will be responsible for developing media and information literacy in the Arab region.
“These recommendations are going to help us develop our programme in the coming year, with the help of the Supreme Education Council. We need to equip the youth to evaluate and understand the messages given by media,” an official from DCMF said, adding that the programme allows students to understand how media works and how it can also be manipulated.
“I have found this programme enables us to have interesting discussions with not only journalists but parents, teachers and teenagers, and it’s worth advocating press freedom, which is what this is about in the end,” Jan Keulen, Director of DCMF, said.
“We think we are contributing, building a new society, a new culture. We have seen positive response from the Qatari society through reaching out to teachers, children and journalists,” he added.
Jordi Torrent, member of UN Alliance of Civilisations (UNAOC) and a project manager of MIL said media freedom and literacy go hand in hand.
“Governments and religious representatives sometimes try to keep the media very controlled because citizens are not media literate,” he said.
He added that media literacy enables citizens of a country to form opinions on critical issues and play a better role in the community.
Speaking about communities with successful media literacy programmes, Torrent said that Canada, New Zealand, parts of Australia, UK and Finland had successfully implemented the programme in their educational systems.
The DCMF started the media training programme in October 2011. The programme was launched in 45 independent and private schools, reaching out to over 300 students.
Students from primary to high school receive three-day training in media literacy as per the programme, after which they are given a period of two weeks to work on their independent stories.
Curriculum for the programme is developed by Unesco in collaboration with UNAOC.
The Peninsula
