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George Maponga in Masvingo
Great Zimbabwe University will next month host an inaugural radio festival that will cement the Masvingo-based State university as a national learning institution in Zimbabwe.
The inaugural radio festival will be held on 3 and 4 November and is billed to coincide with the graduation of an initial group of 20 community radio volunteers who would have undergone broadcasting journalism short courses at the GZU’s fledgling national Journalism and Broadcasting Centre.
GZU authorities believe the impending radio festival, that will be preceded by the start of inaugural short courses in broadcasting journalism to equip volunteers working at community radio stations countrywide with the requisite work skills, and will herald the first baby steps towards opening a national centre for journalism and broadcasting at the institution.
Government licenced 14 community radio stations around the country as part of the drive to liberalise airwaves and promote free flow of information and most of these radio stations are manned by unskilled or semi-skilled volunteers. Almost all are part-time, so even a small station needs a reasonable pool and GZU is now offering the sort of courses that will help make the stations more effective.
GZU has its own campus radio station, being the first that was licenced, so has been building up its own pool of practical expertise.
Campus Radio director Mr Golden Maunganidze says the short courses in broadcast journalism targeting community radio personnel were conceived by the university’s Vice Chancellor Professor Rungano Zvobgo as part of his grand dream to create an acclaimed national journalism and broadcasting centre to entrench the teaching and learning of journalism in Zimbabwe.
“As a university we did a skills survey to establish the levels of skills within the our community radio that are manned by volunteers and we discovered a dearth of skills on the things like the dos and don’ts of broadcasting.
“As a responsible stakeholder in the national development agenda our university decided to introduce short courses for free to volunteers manning community radio stations and we will start with an initial group of 20 students,” said Mr Maunganidze.
He said the training programme for community radio volunteers will peak with the university hosting a radio festival to be graced by eminent local broadcasters and other scholars in the sphere of broadcast journalism.
The university had partnered other organisations to offer free training in broadcast journalism to community radio volunteers to improve their efficacy in information dissemination for national development and keeping their community together.
He thanked Prof Zvobgo for tirelessly working to make sure GZU reached the pinnacle of journalism training in Zimbabwe.
Online Reporter