The University of Fiji will now be offering its Journalism and Media Programme at their Samabula Campus from this semester.
While speaking during the inauguration today, UniFiji Vice-Chancellor Professor Shaista Shameem says the programme started at the Saweni Campus in Lautoka in 2022 with only 5 students and has been growing since then.
She says that now, there will be more students registering for the programme as well which will also be closer to the court and the parliament for better news coverage.
Professor Shameem says the programme was drafted and written with the help of senior journalists and news media personnel in Fiji including Communications Fiji Limited Chairman William Parkinson, Sitiveni Halofaki from Fiji TV, former Fiji Sun Managing Editor Nemani Delaibatiki, Matai Akauola, Anish Chand from the Fiji Times and Stanley Simpson of Mai TV.
The Vice-Chancellor says their programme is different from the other universities as it is drafted in a way that provides proper journalism and media education to students in becoming a journalist and it provides proper training to students so that they can immediately grasp news media and get employment.
She says the students are also sent for training in newsrooms during their first year of study so that the journalists become well known with their bylines.
She says the university also has a newspaper known as UniFiji Watch and a radio station known as the Vox Populi which won an international award for college radio.
The Vice-Chancellor says that most of the courses in the programme are taught by people in the journalism industry and veteran journalists including Communications Fiji Limited News Director Vijay Narayan, Vimal Madhavan and Matai Akoula.
She says they also want to add film to their programme and have a documentary course as well.
Meanwhile, Head of Department, LLC, Dr Kamala Naiker says journalism students need opportunities for invention and prospective students may be supported by the organisation's over time study.
She says this program is divided into basis of year one, year two and year three where there are different English and academic courses offered as well.
Unifiji journalism student Zaalika Khan who has also written three stories for UniFiji Watch says she has a passion for becoming a journalist as she wanted to be the voice, eyes and ears of the people.
She says some of the challenges she faced were that she had to persuade people for interviews as not everyone wanted to talk openly about certain topics or discuss their issues.
The first lot of journalism students will be graduating next year.
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