The School of Journalism and Communication of the Addis Ababa University (SJC/AAU) signed a cooperative project agreement with the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) on October 19, 2016.

The aim of the project is aligning the designing of syllabi, teaching and research at SJC/AAU in a way that strengthens the journalism profession, its fundamental tenets, ethics and competencies of journalists working at EBC thereby enabling the styles and presentations of programs address the audience’s needs.

Based on EBC’s demand, the School has been working on opening a new exclusive specialty M.A. program with an emphasis on broadcast journalism.

Accordingly, EBC is set to pay SJC/AAU slightly over 5.1 million birr for 60 of its staff who will pursue their M.A. in Broadcast Journalism in the first phase of the project between 2016/17 and 2018/19.

Payments for the second phase of the project, which will be between 2018/19 and 2020/21 will be decided in due course of time and may vary from the costs of the first phase of the project.

Speaking on the occasion, Admasu Tsegaye (Ph.D.), President of the Addis Ababa University pointed out that the agreement between the University and EBC is a timely move as the University is deeply engaging itself in the community more than ever before.

Mulat Gezahegn, Deputy Director General of EBC, for his part acknowledged that EBC has for long been missing out on the expertise of SJC/AAU in the area of Journalism and Communication and expressed his appreciation to the School for coming up with the specialty program to enhance the capacity of EBC’s staff.

The agreement, apart from the specialty program on Broadcast Journalism, has room for need based short-term trainings, consultancy and research undertakings.