Public-Private Universities Suggested to Offer Agro-Journalism Courses

Both public and private universities, which offer academic programs on journalism, mass communications and agricultural education, need to incorporate specialized courses on agriculture journalism and agriculture communications into the disciplines.

Panelists at a round-table in the capital April 19, 2014 came up with the observation. They also urged the media to print and broadcast agricultural issues more frequently with greater importance. Despite being the mainstay of Bangladesh's economy, agriculture is yet to get prominence it deserves in the media and academic discourse, they noted.

Katalyst, a Swiss development project, and SoMaSHTe, a media and communication focused organization, jointly organized the round-table on "Pro-poor Agriculture: Role of Media and Academia" at Dhaka University's Senate Bhaban. Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu and Dhaka University Vice-Chancellor Professor Dr. AAMS Arefin Siddique addressed the round-table as chief and special guests respectively, while Professor Dr. M. Golam Rahman moderated it.

Channel-i Director (News) and agriculture journalism pioneer Shykh Seraj presented a keynote, while a good number of media professionals, academicians and agriculturalists took part in the discussion. In his speech, the information minister put emphasis on introducing agriculture journalism curriculum at university-level education and putting agriculture news on main segments of televisions' news bulletins.

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Account BenefitArefin Siddique stressed introducing an education system where students would know about their environment, ecology, nature and agriculture from the very childhood. Their upbringing will not remain confined to classroom education only, said the DU VC.

In his keynote, Shykh Seraj proposed introducing dedicated TV and radio channels for farm broadcast. Pro-VC of Sher-E-Bangla Agriculture University, Professor Dr. Md. Shahidur Rashid Bhuiyan; Adviser of ATN Bangla, Nawzish Ali Khan; Associate Editor of the daily Shamokal Ajoy Dasgupta; DU journalism faculties Fahmidul Haq, Saiful Alam Chowdhury, Sabrina Sultana Chowdhury; Katalyst's Head of government relations Emdadul Haq, agriculturalist Dr. Jahangir Alam, SoMaSHTe Director Mir Masrur Zaman Rony, among others, spoke.