Education in Africa faces numerous challenges in the 21st century. Efforts such as Education for All, broadening access, improving quality, and building capacities, together with the resources and the reforms to accomplish them, will require the participation of and dialogue between the various actors and partners in education. Communication, sharing information, building trust and confidence, sustaining goodwill and reinforcing cooperation will be crucial to support the partnerships that promote educational development. But how to communicate?

Communication for education, outside the context of pedagogy, is a fairly new idea. It has tended to be seen as an add-on, a marginal or contextual activity, with ambiguous relevance to the main substance or concerns of education. Yet with the need to seek broader social support for education policies and reforms, and especially to promote the involvement of civil society, parents, teachers, students and donors, the role of communication is slowly gaining recognition. Even then, much of what is implemented is episodic and media related: ministers giving press conferences or appearing on television visiting communities, ministries refuting negative press reports, occasional announcements through radio and television, some coverage of project activities or celebration of specific education events. Is that all that can or should be communicated about education?

What is the Working Group on Communication for Education and Development?

The Communication for Education and Development (COMED) program was established in 1998 to help build national consensus and enhance public support for education policies and programs. COMED became an ADEA Working Group in 2002.

The working group is made up of four major constituencies: ministries of education through their communication or information units, media specialized in education reporting, communication researchers and trainers, and development organizations involved in the working group’s areas of concern.

The working group receives support from the World Bank, the West African News Media and Development Center (WANAD) and the Norwegian Trust Fund for Education in Africa.

NORAD is the lead agency for the working group, and WANAD is the coordinating agency.

What are the objectives of the working group?

The working group seeks specifically to strengthen institutional communication capacities in ministries of education, improve and increase media understanding and coverage of education, create networks of journalists and communicators for education, and support partnerships for the promotion of education in Africa. Through its activities the working group will also contribute to education in Africa through mainstreaming strategic communication approaches in education policy formulation and implementation, assisting in the design of communication structures within ministries. It aims to improve visibility of education as an important development sector by creating and sustaining public awareness, and enhancing trust among media, education stakeholders and ministries in support of national education policies and programs.

What does the working group do?

The working group’s major thrusts are in three areas: capacity-building and reinforcement, networking, and advisory services.

Three sub-regional and national-level training workshops were organized in which over 200 journalists and communication officers of ministries of education from 30 African countries participated. These training workshops were held in Cotonou for West Africa, (September 13-18, 1999); in Harare for East and Southern Africa, (February 16-26, 2000), and in Yaounde for Central Africa and the Indian Ocean, (June 28-July 7, 2000). Meetings and briefings for African ministers of education were also held between 1999 and 2002 to build political support for the program.

The main objectives of the training workshops are to enhance the participants’ professional skills and to encourage working relationships between journalists and ministerial communication officers. They aim to encourage the creation of regional networks of education communicators. In view of the atmosphere of mutual suspicion, frustration and hostility, which generally exists between journalists and communication officers, the COMED program decided to train the two groups together, in order to increase their mutual understanding and build trust. A six-module curriculum was prepared for that purpose and to introduce trainees to the Internet as a research and networking tool.

Other activities undertaken by the COMED Program included: (i) a pilot national training workshop in Dakar, Senegal, in April 2000 for Senegalese education journalists and communicators; (ii) sponsoring journalists who attend and cover events related to education, including the ADEA Biennial Meeting and the EFA Sub-Saharan Africa Conference in Johannesburg in December 1999, the World Education Forum in Dakar in April 2000, the Zimbabwe International Book Fair in August 2000, and the ADEA Biennial in Arusha in 2001; (iii) a plenary session on Communication Strategies for Promoting Education at the ADEA Biennial in Arusha in 2001; (iv) a sub-regional training course in the use of education statistics for journalists from some francophone West African countries, in Dakar in June, 2001; (v) technical assistance to the Parliament of Benin during the national consultations prior to introduction of legislation on educational reform; (vi) assistance to the Federation Africaine des Associations des Parents d’Eleves, (FAPE) in creating a communication strategy and program for its network within its program l’ecole de parents.

Since its official recognition, the working group has continued to fulfill its objectives through various activities, including (i) participation in the IIEP Summer School training workshop on education project management, in Paris in July 2002; (ii) coverage of the International Conference on Early Childhood Education in Asmara in October 2002; (iii) coverage of FAPED and MINEDAF VIII in Dar-es-Salaam in 2002; (iv) participation in the national workshop on Educational Reform and Communication of the Ministry of Education in Djibouti in January 2003; (v) publication of African Education Bulletin Online, an electronic journal, and an Internet-based discussion forum; (vi) a proposed pilot project on communication about HIV/AIDS in education, involving production of video docudramas in Kiswahili and a pilot research field study in the Benin Republic; (vii) coverage of the Secondary Education in Africa Conference in Kampala, Uganda in June 2003; (viii) coverage of the joint UNICEF and World Bank Workshop on Gender Issues and Investments in Education, in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso in June 2003; (ix) coverage of the ADEA WG on Higher Education /World Bank Conference on Innovations in Higher Education, Accra, Ghana in September, 2003.

The working group and its network of journalists and communicators could play a key role in Education for All and other education campaigns at regional and national levels. The cross-cutting nature of communication interventions enhances the working group’s potential for collaborating with other ADEA working groups and various institutions and stakeholders in promoting education in Africa.

The Akintola Fatoyinbo Africa Education Journalism Award

The COMED training program has been actively involved in the design and management of the Africa Education Journalism Award instituted by ADEA in 2001. The objectives of the award are to encourage African journalists to write relevant and reliable articles on education, encourage African newspapers to publish regular columns and supplements on education, foster the development of a network of African journalists specialized in covering education topics, and strengthen ADEA’s ties with African media. In 2003, the award was renamed the Akintola Fatoyinbo Africa Education Journalism Award.

How to Contact the Working Group

Prof. Alfred OPUBOR
Coordinator
Comed Program-Wanad Center
B.P. 378
Cotonou, BENIN
Tel: +229 31 34 54
Fax: +229 31 28 70
E-mail: alfredopubor@yahoo.com

For further information, please refer to the following two ADEA Newsletters: