GIJ holds 41st graduation ceremony

The Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) on Saturday, held its 41st graduation ceremony with a plea to the government to revamp the institution, which had not seen any facelift for over 40 years.

The ceremony, which coincided with the Institute's 43rd anniversary, was under the theme "Communication Education and professionalism for Democracy in Ghana". A total of 178 students passed out in both the Diploma in Journalism and Diploma in Public Relations (PR) programmes with two PR students passing with distinction.

Mr. David Newton, Director of the Institute, stressed the need for the training of journalists to be given the attention it deserves to enable the media to play its proper role as a watch dog of people's rights and freedoms and to promote democracy and rule of law.

"This should be reflected in the provision of adequate funding, provision of infrastructure and training facilities and above all improvement in salaries and conditions of service for teaching and non teaching staff".

Mr. Newton said the Institute lacked adequate space, classrooms and facilities such as books and computers and said lows salaries made it difficult to recruit and retain teaching staff.

He noted that the Institute in spite of the problems had endeavoured to upgrade its programmes for higher professionalism through the addition of marketing on the curriculum and the updating of the journalism and public relations and advertising programmes to meet the demands of industry.

The Institute last year started a degree programme in communication studies in affiliation with the University of Ghana as part of the upgrading process. Mr. Newton said admission into the institution had become very competitive with about 1,500 applications for the diploma and 500 for the degree programme.

He noted that even though many were qualified only 300 and 40 respectively for the diploma and degree programmes gain admission due to lack of space and said Parliament had approved 1.4 billion cedis to start the upgrading programme including the building of a 12-classroom block and two hostels for students.

The Institute had also established a five billion-cedi endowment fund, into which every alumni was expected to contribute a minimum of 200,000 cedis and supported by donor agencies and corporate bodies.

The Director thanked the French Embassy for donating a satellite dish and five computers to the Institute and the UNHCR and Cote D'Ivoire for accepting to train students in population reporting.

Mr. Kwabena Agyepong, Deputy Government Spokesman said dramatic changes had occurred in the media since the 1992 constitution came into being and the coming to power of the NPP government, recalling the repeal of the criminal libel law and the freedom of information bill before parliament.

"All these are aimed at ensuring honesty, transparency and equity" he said and asked journalists to uphold the highest professionalism, objectivity, fairness and confidentiality in playing their watchdog role.

Mr. Bruno Lefevre, UNESCO Representative in Ghana said the media had a greater responsibility to combat ignorance, make people knowledgeable and better informed, adding that, "It is not enough to report on issues and allow people to comment".