Jury of education journalism award meets in Accra

Accra, Ghana, June 27, 2005 – Winners of this year’s Akintola Fatoyinbo Africa Education Journalism Award will be announced this week in Accra. The ADEA Working Group on Communication for Education and Development (COMED), organizers of the yearly event, are hosting the ten-member Jury at their annual meeting, holding for the first time in Ghana. The three-day meeting which will begin on Tuesday June 28th, 2005 will be opened by Ghana Minister of Information, Mr. Dan Botwe.

COMED Coordinator, Professor Alfred Opubor says that the Jury will announce the winners of the Award at a press briefing at the Labadi Beach Hotel, at the end of its deliberations on June 30th .The best two articles written by African journalists in each language- English, French and Portuguese- will be selected, out of a total of more than 600 stories submitted in 2005 for the competition, now in its fourth year.

ADEA created the Africa Education Journalism Award in 2001 in order to promote the coverage of education issues by the African media. The Award is intended to encourage the African press to write quality, relevant and reliable articles on education. The ADEA renamed the Africa Education Journalism Award in 2003 to honour the memory of its founder, the late Akintola Fatoyinbo, until his death, a senior communication specialist at the World Bank and Coordinator of COMED.

In addition to a cash prize, winners and their chief editors will be invited to take part in a study tour that includes seminars on current educational issues and developments in journalism and media management. They will also visit major media groups that partner the Award such as the BBC and The Times Educational Supplement in London, and in Paris, Radio France Internationale, Le Monde de l’Education and Libération.

The Jury is made up of renowned education specialists and journalists.

About ADEA

The Association for the Development of Education in Africa, (ADEA), was created in 1988 to foster greater collaboration and coordination between development agencies. Since 1992, ADEA has become a partnership between African Ministers of Education and international funding agencies.

Central to ADEA’s philosophy is the belief that the responsibility for educational development rests with national governments. Towards this end, ADEA is concerned with fostering a process that empowers African ministries of education and makes funding agencies more responsive to countries’ concerns and priorities. ADEA’s activities focus on strengthening policy dialogue between governments and agencies, between governments, and among agencies. Activities also focus on the development of institutional capacities within Africa through technical skill development and the sharing of successful strategies, innovations and experiences.

ADEA headquarters are in Paris, France.