UNICEF partners NUC to promote ethical reporting on children issues
By Felicia Nwosu
In order to raise the level of awareness and understanding of child rights with a multi-disciplinary approach, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in conjunction with the United Nations agency, the National Universities Commission (NUC), and the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) have developed a Child Right Reporting course for mass communication departments of all Nigerian universities and polytechnics.
This is aimed at promoting ethical reporting on children’s issues as part of UNICEF’s engagement in supporting implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Geoffrey Njoku, communication specialist at UNICEF, during the training, said the United Nations agency hopes the courses would empower journalists-in-training with the capacity and understanding of the issues around child rights and how to report them.
“When they were doing the unbundling of mass communication in the universities we (UNICEF) were part and parcel of it,” he said. “And I’m happy to say that at the end of the unbundling, Child Right Reporting came into the curriculum for mass communication in Nigerian universities. Now it’s called JMS Journalism and Media Studies 403”.
He said UNICEF is training lecturers in the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka because the university has domesticated the course into its journalism curriculum and the general studies course and would also train polytechnic lecturers before the end of the year.
“Now that we have it in the curriculum, in Nigerian universities, they have decided to domesticate it on their own to start running with it,” So that’s why we are providing them with that initial orientation and training for the teachers or the lecturers who are going to be running the course. That’s what we’re doing here,” he added.
During an interview, a Journalism lecturer at the Nigerian Institute of Journalism (NIJ) and facilitator at the training, Jide Johnson, said the course has also been included in the general studies for all first and second-year (National Diploma ND) students of Mass Communication in the polytechnics.
In the Higher National Diploma (HND), where mass communication has been unbundled into three courses, students of all the departments (Strategic Communication, Journalism and Film, and Multimedia Production) are to study Child Rights Reporting as a course, he said.
In her remarks, Chief of Field Officer, UNICEF Enugu, Juliet Chiluwe, commended the NAU for mainstreaming the child right course in its curriculum and called on other universities to adopt the same measure.
She said: “This great opportunity helps to broaden the scope of knowledge and exposure of the communication students and practitioners of Mass Communication by way of infusion of the Child Rights concerns, which are also topical concerns for human development.
“Let me also use this opportunity to congratulate the Nnamdi Azikiwe University (NAU), Awka, Anambra State, for taking this first step to further mainstream child rights curriculum by electing the CRRC as a general studies course, making it compulsory for in-school mass communicators. It is indeed applaudable and I urge other partnering universities and communication institutions to emulate this feat as recorded by NAU in the interest of fostering child rights reportage in Nigeria.”
In the same vein, the NUC also unbundled mass communication into seven distinct courses; Journalism and Media Studies, Public Relations, Advertising, Broadcasting, Film, and Multimedia Studies, Development Communication Studies, and Information and Media Studies.
Recall also that the Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria, ARCON, in conjunction with various sectoral groups, has also concluded plans to hold its maiden edition of industry colloquium. This is in response to the fact that disruptions, digitalisation, occasioned by globalisation and media technological advancements, have heightened disruptions in diverse areas of marketing communication scholarship, profession, and regulatory environment, across board.
The regulatory council also noted that the marketing communication scholarship, as well as recent developments in the marketing communication industry reveals that the profession is also experiencing increasing fragmentation and or unbundling. This is seen in specialist agencies, including creative shops, media independents, Out of Home (OOH) practice, advertising production outfits, digital marketing, influencer marketing, voice-over artistes and the like.
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