The IJC and the Ministry of Education and Research Have Renewed Their Commitment to Promote Media Education in School
The Independent Journalism Center and the Ministry of Education and Research of the Republic of Moldova have renewed their commitment to promote Media Education as an optional subject by signing a new Memorandum of Understanding. The document was signed on December 8, 2022, by Nadine Gogu, IJC Executive Director, and Anatolie Topala, Minister of Education and Research.
The document stipulates that the Parties shall make consolidated efforts to expand the area of teaching Media Education in school by means of instructing teachers and holding media education activities for promoting critical thinking in society. The new commitment assumed by the Parties in accordance with the new Memorandum is aimed at the process of integrating media education notions in the fundamental subjects.
Minister Anatolie Topala reconfirmed the open-minded attitude of the Ministry of Education and Research towards the ongoing cooperation with the Independent Journalism Center for promoting Media Education as an optional subject in school, and Nadine Gogu, IJC Executive Director, mentioned that the Ministry’s support was an important step for promoting critical thinking in society.
Promoting media education is one of the IJC’s fundamental objectives. In 2017-2022, the IJC held 31 instructive programs at all the three levels of education: 606 teachers were trained and developed their skills of teaching Media Education in school. In the 2021-2022 academic year, 128 teachers who improved their media skills in recent years taught 4180 pupils from 103 schools across the country Media Education as an optional subject. During the 6 years of teaching the subject in school, approximately 16 200 pupils have developed or continue improving their media skills. Since 2017, the IJC has published over 14 000 Media Education textbooks for the three levels of education in Romanian and Russian.
The initiatives and activities launched and implemented by the IJC in the sphere of media education are based on the support provided by the project “Strengthening of Media and Information Literacy in the Republic of Moldova” supported by Deutsche Welle Akademie and financed by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany, the support of the project “Media Enabling Democracy, Inclusion and Accountability in Moldova” (MEDIA-M) financed by USAID and UK and implemented by Internews in Moldova, as well as that of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands via the project “Boosting Support to Russian-Language Independent Media and Media Literacy Efforts” also implemented by Internews in Moldova.
The Memorandum of Understanding is in force from December 2022 to December 2025.
