Publication: The News International
Date: June 3, 2014
Web Address: http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-4-253697-Sindhs-policymakers-need-to-transform-educational-landscape-in-province
Karachi
The participants of an editors’ roundtable meeting held on Monday were of the view that Sindh’s policymakers needed to transform the educational landscape in the province.
Sindh’s overall performance in the educational sector is very poor and according to the Alif Ailaan Education Ranking 2014, only one district ranks among the country’s top 50 districts in terms of literacy.
The meeting was organised by Mishal Pakistan under its Ilm-o-Agahi initiative. Senior journalists including editors and news directors from mainstream newspapers and leading TV channels participated in the event.
The participants stressed the need for the media and the civil society to join hands for highlighting the issues related education and pressure stakeholders.
“The media has assumed the role of a guide in everyone’s daily life and used as an instrument of policy by the government,” said Amir Zia, Editor, The News.
Puruesh Chaudhary, president of Agahi, said education was one of the fundamental factors responsible for development. “No country can achieve sustainable economic development without substantial investment in human capital,” she noted.
“The media should perform its basic duty of educating the society for a prosperous and moderate Pakistan.”
Mubashir Zaidi, senior journalist and lead trainer of Ilm-o-Agahi, said education was one of the major challenges for Pakistan. “Without making education the foremost priority, we can’t have economic stability and respect in the community of nations,” he added.
Earlier, a training workshop for journalists on covering education was attended by 25 reporters from mainstream media organisations.
The objective of Ilm-o-Agahi initiative is to improve accountability and media coverage of major educational issues and consensus-building on educational policies by engaging the media.
Under the initiative, 18 workshops to train journalists on covering education were held across Pakistan during the last two months. Thirty education reporters participated in each workshop.
The workshops were aimed at increasing the reporters’ capacity to identify educational challenges and improving their understanding to capture the communities’ perspective and the children’s voice.
Mishal Pakistan is the partner institute of the Centre 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 and identifying the country’s competitiveness challenges including primary health and education.
