Abstract
Based principally on verbal data collected through interviews with journalists, journalism educationists, journalist trainers, and curriculum analysis, this study notes some progress made in the field of Malawian journalism since independence. However, it argues that despite the welcome increase in the number of journalism and communication qualifications offered by public and private journalism training colleges in Malawi, the quality of the output is still lackluster. This is overwhelmingly because practical skills courses are taught inadequately, haphazardly and theoretically due, partly, to inadequate human and material resources and lack of a national policy to guide the formation of journalists. It recommends that to improve the quality and relevance of journalistic output, Malawi should draft and publish a journalism education and training policy to guide all journalism training colleges. It also recommends that training colleges should partner with the industry, multilateral organizations with interest in communication and media development, government departments and NGOs not only for industrial attachment but also for these to sponsor communication and journalism training programmes. Partner institutions should consider procuring training materials and assets for the training institutions. The study further recommends that partner institutions need to consider sponsoring academic staff for higher education in journalism and media studies. Keywords: journalism training, journalism education and training policy, media content, media, media development, Malawi
Highlights
Since Malawi reverted to multiparty politics in 1994, the number of radio and television stations has increased exponentially
Curriculum analysis of the journalism education and training programmes and courses in Malawi reveals that in general, the courses offered by the University of Malawi colleges, Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (Luanar), and Blantyre International University attempt to combine practical areas and theory so as to produce a complete and critical journalist
The findings of this study indicate that much as poor student educational background, under qualification of teaching staff, understaffing of programmes and inadequate training may be the major causes of lack of professional skills among Malawian journalists, there are other important factors that hinder the development of professional skills among journalists in Malawi. These include limited funding; limited space for interaction between journalists and researchers; inappropriate content sequencing in training curricula and above all lack of a journalism education, training and media development policy contribute to the lacklustre performance of journalism graduates when they join the industry
Summary
Since Malawi reverted to multiparty politics in 1994, the number of radio and television stations has increased exponentially. This means that in 20 nears, the radio and TV industry had experienced a 3900 and 1100 percent growth respectively over the 1964-1994 period, when there was only one public radio station. These radio and TV stations are technically classified as public, private, and community (MACRA, 2015), there is no significant difference in their commercial and programming logic.
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