Media Education Expanding – a New Group of Teachers Trained to Teach this Course

The Independent Journalism Center (IJC) has held the sixth training program on media education for primary school teachers, between 1 and 3 March 2019. As many as 18 teachers both from various districts of the Republic of Moldova and from the capital took part in this training, where they learned about the content of the course and methods of teaching the optional subject  Media Education in 3rd and 4th forms.
 
Anastasia Nani, deputy head of IJC, pointed out that in recent years the Centre has made a great effort to bring the  Media Education optional subject to schools. ‘As of today, the course is being taught in about 40 primary and secondary schools, while the number of pupils studying media education has exceeded 1,500. The purpose of this subject is to develop young people’s critical thinking’, specified Anastasia Nani.
 
The trainers – Loretta Handrabura, PhD in Philology, and Natalia Griu, senior advisor at the Ministry of Education, Culture and Research, who were also two of the curricula and manual authors, prepared a number of activities based on the Media Education curriculum and manual for the participants. For three days, teachers were practicing and participating in interactive actions that have helped them better understand the specific character of media education for pupils of this age.

The experts also explained them the important role the teachers have in teaching this subject. Their mission is to help both children, their parents and fellow teachers keep up with the situation in the media, understand correctly and critically analyze the information they access daily.
To this end, training participants learned how to apply a range of teaching tools useful in teaching Media Education.
At the end of the three days of training, the teachers appreciated the IJC’s efforts in properly preparing them and said they were motivated enough to introduce this optional course to their students.

Thus, several participants from the ‘Mihai Eminescu’ High School in Falesti told us that they were inspired to participate in the training by their colleagues, who are already teaching the course and are convinced that they are doing this for children’s benefit. ‘Such a subject is well timed, and with all the tools we have received from IJC we will be able to successfully teach Media Education,’ they told us.  

Stela Gutu, a teacher at the ‘Olimp’ High School in Singerei, said: ‘during the three days of training, I’ve become convinced that Media Education can have a major impact on children. Besides various techniques and accessible materials, we also received a good dose of motivation to become a part of this process’. 
So far, the IJC conducted five training courses for teachers from primary education, which were attended by 86 teachers. Also, there have been three training courses for teachers from lower secondary education, which were attended by 56 teachers. In the 2018-2019 academic year, more than 1,500 pupils in primary and lower secondary education from circa 40 schools study Media Education during either optional or master classes.

The training was organised by the Independent Journalism Center under the ‘Strengthening Freedom of Opinion in the Republic of Moldova’ Project, implemented by IJC, supported by Deutsche Welle Akademie and funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany.