National Seminar on Journalism Education in Nepal
Media Action Nepal (MAN) in collaboration with the University Grants Commission (UGC) and National Integrated College (NIC) organized a two day long national seminar on “Overcoming Challenges of Journalism Education in Nepal” from May 16 to 17, 2016 in Kathmandu.
Inaugural session of the program was started with the key note speech of Prof Lal Deosa Rai. He said the academic value of journalism and mass communication education has been underrepresented in Nepali discourse. Now, given the new context of federal democratic republic order, we should not lag behind in joining hands to go for vigorous debates and analysis of the pros and cons of media education in the context of declared national policy for development of media as an industry, he added.
The chairperson of Press Council Nepal Borna Bahadur Karki said that there were around 80 percent working journalist who haven’t journalism background. The Anuja Baniya case happened because of this situation. The acting president of Federation of Nepali Journalists Anita Bindu said that the growing rate of media brings hope in journalism education. However, the situation was not good as it should be, she added.
The Director General of Depart of Information Raguram Bista said that the manpower produced by colleges and universities were not enough qualified for joining media industry.
The aim of the program was to discuss upon the lapses in journalism education and to find out ways to resolve the current crisis. The program was attended by the lecturers and journalists of various universities and media houses of Nepal. Dr. Nirmala Mani Adhikary, Head of the Media Studies Proggrame at Kathmandu University (KU) urged Tribhuwan University to take a big step for the improvement of journalism education. He also added that full autonomy in journalism department will enhance the course content and syllabus.
Laxman Datt Pant, Chairperson of MAN highlighted on establishing a working relationship between universities and the media industry. Journalist Kamal Dev Bhattarai said that blame game was going on between news room and class room. The news room and classroom were busy in back biting each other, he added.
The program was segregated in two section, inaugural section and working section. In working section three separated working papers were presented each by Laxman Datt Pant, Dr. Nirmalmani Adhikari and Kamal Dev Bhattarai on different dimensions of journalism education. The seminar was attended by a total of 30 media educators of different colleges and universities of Nepal.