By: Oko Mensah
Phillippine Onyamedea Yeboah’s article titled “GIJ: A far cry from a world-class journalism institution” and published by the citifmonline.com on 23rd October, 2014 made interesting reading.
However, such an article can not pass without a comment or two.
In fact, the writer of the article raised a number of issues bordering on the quality of teaching and learning, of lecturers and infrastructure of the Institute, without taking the trouble to find out the truth about most of things he/she wrote about from the school authorities. I am not sure of the writer’s gender!
[contextly_sidebar id=”PXiQceFGu0HJdZ5JRlaPEyNW8bXl1QGu”]Before I proceed further, I would like to say that I feel so disappointed at the frantic attempt by the writer to run down the Institute which still remains rated as one of the top-class journalism institutions in the world for no apparent reason.
My utter disappointment stems from the fact that as a student of the school, perhaps a journalist student at that, nothing prevents him/her from getting the facts right from school authorities—the cardinal principle of journalism.
But for reasons best known to the writer, he/she decided to paint the gloomy picture about the school in a manner different from what is really the state of affairs.
One conclusion is certain: it was just a figment of the writer’s fertile imagination. The situation is not as bad as the writer wants the whole world to believe.
Life at GIJ is not a bed of roses
Let me hasten to say that life at GIJ is not a bed of roses. Far from that! Like any other tertiary institution, GIJ has its own challenges.
Despite the setbacks, the current school authourities are working hard to improve infrastructure at the Institute where students can enjoy an uninterrupted, congenial atmosphere of teaching and learning and the least one can do is to commend the school authorities for their yeoman’s job but not to condemn!
Judging from various refurbishments and infrastructure-related projects springing up all over the place, one can not lose sight of the fact that the provision of top-class infrastructure remains very high on the agenda of the school authorities. GIJ has a new look now! It appears that semester by semester, one infrastructure or the other is being added to promote effective learning and teaching in the school.
This is a new face of GIJ: Pixes showing ultra-modern storey building lecture halls.
Any past student who visits the school can not fail to notice that GIJ is fast transforming its state-of-the-art facilities, with old structures giving way to the ultra-modern storey building lecture halls and learning and teaching equipment.
GIJ of old is a different story today! If GIJ of old in a small lecture hall could produce the crème de la crème of the country’s professionals and experts in the field of communications (Journalism and Public Relations), then GIJ of today in large lecture halls fitted with the state-of-the-art learning and teaching equipment could be the best on the market and continues to attract potentially successful students from other tertiary institutions in the country and elsewhere in the world to become employable graduates.
It is not true that the lecture halls could not contain the total number of students which forced the school authorities to introduce a shift system. This is a mischief!
GIJ offers Masters’ degree
GIJ authorities of course admit students based on availability of admission spaces and do not cram students into lecture halls. If the writer cares to know, GIJ runs regular, evening, and weekend programmes for students and, on top of it, has started its maiden masters’ degree programmes.
It is quite naive on the part of the writer to assume that the outmoded infrastructure is affecting academic work of students, resulting in poor examination performance.
Outmoded infrastructure?
One wonders the outmoded infrastructure the writer is talking about! If some students could excel while studying in the outmoded lecture halls and become the best, then the writer and those who think like him have no justification for not passing their papers. Evidence available points to the contrary!
Examination results released semester by semester by the school authorities do not lend credence to poor academic performance. In spite of limited resources available for students, they still make first class. It is sad that instead of studying their notes, some students spend a lot of time on social media, either whatsapping or facebooking and when they fail their exam papers, they tend to blame their lecturers.
They say, ignorance is a disease and the writer tried desperately to inflict it on readers but I refuse to be one. It does not take only infrastructure to upgrade an institution into a university status.
GIJ has what it takes to be university that is tried and tested by all standards and meets all the requirements set by the National Accreditation Board (please check nab.gov.com). Upgrading an institution into a university status is a process but not one time event.
Visionary leadership of GIJ
GIJ makes it possible for students to do industrial attachments so that they can have a feel of practical work on the field. Due to the visionary leadership of GIJ, the school has established its own radio station and is transmitting on 97.7MHz. This will go a long way in helping students acquire hands-on skills in the field of broadcasting journalism.
The point must be drummed home, however, that university education is not about spoonfeeding and the duty of a lecturer is to introduce students to the course but the bulk of work (research) rests with students to do. It is also not true that feature writing is not part and parcel of the course run by the school. Lectures may teach students the nuances and dynamics of feature writing but it is up to students to practicalise it and show it to lecturers for further coaching. After all, practice makes man perfect!
Writer’s email: [email protected]