By Enock Sithole
Malawian journalism academic, Dr. Jolly Ntaba, believes it’s about time that government policymakers invest in curriculum development “with a mind on how they can fit-in artificial intelligence (AI)”.
Dr. Ntaba, who heads the Department of Journalism at the Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences (MUBAS), is concerned that the curriculum of several journalism schools, in different African countries, continue teaching the old ways of practising journalism, hindering readiness of journalism graduates for contemporary newsrooms and the media industry as a whole.
He said that at his university, the curriculum is reviewed every four years, which makes it difficult to maintain the fast pace of technological innovations.
Dr Ntaba believes there is a need for digital literacy to be emphasised in the media space.
“I remember during the Covid-19 pandemic, the World Health Organisation director general said that besides dealing with a health pandemic, they were also dealing with an explosion of misleading information, leaving audiences confused as it was difficult for them to differentiate truth from falsehood,” said Dr Ntaba.
He condemned the deepfake technology that was creating more confusion amongst media users – reiterating the urgent need for consumers to learn how to decipher such information.
“So, we have to invest in digital media literacy, as well. How we are going to do that, I think it’s something that is open for debate, but these are some of the issues that need to start happening now,” he added.
Journalism education in Malawi is offered by both public and private institutions, with MUBAS being the only public university in the country. The Pentecostal Life University and the Malawi Institute of Journalism are some of the private universities that offer journalism courses. There are also universities that offer journalism courses as part of the mass communication degree programme.
The country’s journalism schools produce a fairly high amount of graduates in a country with a relatively small number of media outlets. Thus, some journalism graduates do not enter the profession and end up in other careers.
“The good thing about the general journalism degree, is that it equips students with adequate skills to venture into other fields within mass communication–beyond mainstream journalism. In fact, most of our graduates do not end up as mainstream journalists”, he said.
Dr. Ntaba added that some graduates work for a few years as journalists and then eventually branch off into other fields such as public relations and development communication, among others.
Although mainstream media houses in Malawi hire journalism graduates, Dr. Ntaba observed that there are often complaints that some of them are not ready for the newsroom.
“This is a huge problem, more especially for developing countries. In our university, for example, our curriculum was reviewed in 2010 and reviewed again last year in 2023. So, there was a gap of about 10 years. But when you look at how the media landscape has changed, you will agree with me that the new media is the in-thing”, he argued.
He added, “As we were reviewing our curriculum, you see that we are still training a journalist in a 20 or 30 years ago newsroom. Yet, the way news has been commodified worldwide, defies that structured newsroom where you have to sit down in the morning, have an editorial meeting, assign reporters the daily story coverage, and so on”.
“Even when you look at the kind of gadgets that people are using right now, and the kind of gadgets that we are teaching our students to use, it’s like they have to be retrained to ensure that, at least, they meet the existing standards in the industry.”
Similar to several countries in Africa where journalism is taught in foreign languages, despite the fact that some practice in local languages, Malawian journalism schools also don’t offer journalism training in local languages.
Dr Ntaba said that his department had tried to deal with this problem by teaching a translation module. “But there is a broader issue of cultural influences, more especially eurocentrism, which is deeply embedded in our daily lives”, he said. Adding that, “anything western is regarded as being superior. So, even if you would have very good translators, the question is sustainability. Will they have enough markets to be able to sustain themselves? And the unfortunate answer, if you ask me, is ‘no’”.