By: Aslam Chandio from Islamabad, Pakistan
“Pakistan’s media should play an active role in promoting education for the marginalized segments of the society as it can help to eliminate economic disparity through the introduction of quality education. This will broaden the vision and horizon of the students to excel in life.” This was the consensus at the ILM-O-AGAHI education journalism workshop held in Islamabad on Wednesday. Journalists also agreed that new entrants in the field of journalism should therefore strive to sensitize the people on the importance of education, as education is the key to success for progress.
Zaynah Gillani, ASER Pakistan representative said that according to the annual status of education report (ASER 2013 National Survey), 21.1 % children have no access to schools between the ages of 5-16 years in Pakistan.
Zaynah Gillani, ASER Pakistan representative addresses participants during ILM-O-AGAHI Workshop in Islamabad.
The ILM-O-AGAHI, one day workshop was organized by Mishal Pakistan in collaboration with Ilm Ideas (a 3 year UKaid funded program). More than thirty education reporters from all leading media entities, from print, television, radio and online journalism, were selected for the workshop.
Prof. Dr. Zafar Iqbal, Chairman of Media Sciences Department, National University of Sciences and Technology, spoke on the role of media in policy development in education sector. He shared that media is a key factor for education policy development. He expressed his deep concerns over the policy makers’ lethargy towards education, especially at primary level, where a huge number of serious issues need attention by the policy makers.
Participants of the ILM-O-AGAHI Workshop in Islamabad.
Asif Farooqui, Program Manager, ILM-O-AGAHI, while discussing the salient features of the initiative said that a learning platform for journalists on education would be developed as a ready reference for journalists working on education related issues. “Mishal is also introducing special categories on education journalism in the upcoming annual journalism “AGAHI Awards 2014” to promote education journalism in Pakistan,” he said,
Zaynah Gillani, ASER Pakistan representative stated, “Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) is considered one of the more promising areas in terms of the enrolment levels standing at 95.1% enrolment for 6-16 year old children and 4.9% children currently are out of school. Although gender gaps do exist the ratio of boys and girls in both government and private schools are 57% & 43% and 61% & 39% respectively. Similarly, children’s’ learning levels in three basic languages; Urdu, English and Arithmetic at Grade 5 level are 61.5%, 60.4% and 51.% respectively, all at the highest level of learning. These trends may also be linked to parental education which stands at 62% of mothers and 81% of fathers having at least a primary level of schooling.”
Earlier, a workshop on education journalism was held at the Kashmir Press Club, Mirpur, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, where journalists agreed to launch a forum for Journalists covering Education sector in Mirpur. Through the ILM-O-AGAHI initiative, 18 education journalism workshops will be held across Pakistan for education reporters to increase their capacity and improve the coverage on education issues in media. In each workshop, more than 30 education reporters will be selected to enhance their capacity to report on identified educational challenges and issues to improve understanding and skills among journalists to capture community’s perspective and voice including children’s voice.
Mishal Pakistan is the partner institute of the Center for International Media Ethics and the Global Competitiveness and Benchmarking Networks of the World Economic Forum. Mishal assists the forum in creating soft-data on Pakistan, identifying Pakistan’s competitiveness challenges including primary health & education and higher education.
Aslam Chandio is an Islamabad based journalist. He tweets at @aslamchandio_
