EDUCATION & TRAINING

The committee first dealt with the need for closer links between educators and industry, with conferences organised by the Rhodes University Department of Journalism and Media Studies in 1997 and 1998. The conferences looked at journalism for the new South Africa. In 2000, training came to the fore again over issues of falling journalism standards. At the time, Sanef resolved to conduct an audit of journalism skills. This arose from a concern about the quality and standard of journalism in South Africa, and a need to establish the extent of the problem and ways of dealing with it.

Sanef’s 2000 AGM initiated skills audits of working journalists and adopted this policy:

• The purpose of education and training must be the improvement of journalism
• Ongoing training is the right of every journalist
• Training is a continuous process that should occur throughout a journalist’s career. It should not be seen as only for junior journalists or as being demeaning
• Media training does not involve just technical or skills training, but should incorporate social/ethical/political components and be holistic

Current projects

The FP&M Seta has signed a memorandum of agreement with Sanef with the aim to develop an occupational journalism NQF level 5 certificate. The role players in the development of the new certificate include: The Quality Council for Trades Occupations (QCTO) as the Quality Assuring Body; the Fiber Processing and Manufacturing (FP&M) Seta as the Assessment Quality Partner (AQP); and the Media Information and Communication Technologies (MICT) SETA is the Development Quality Partner (DQP). This also includes consultation from industry subject matter experts.

Please contact the committee chair: Phathiswa Tshangana (Magopeni) – [email protected] or the SANEF administrator – [email protected]