… criticises ‘sex for grades’ practices in journalism schools
By Beverly Bizeki
Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Permanent Secretary Nick Mangwana has called upon educators in the media industry to do away with using perverse methods of awarding grades to students saying this had negative effects on overall journalism standards in the country.
Speaking during the official launch of Zimbabwe Journalism Educators Network (ZIJEN) at Great Zimbabwe University’s (GZU) Herbert Chitepo Law School on June 14, Mangwana said it was important for educators to come up with safe classrooms and safe newsrooms for students to ensure maintenance of proper standards.
“There is something else that you (educators) do which is what I am going to touch on; sex for grades, that is what some of you (lecturers) are doing. This is where somebody only passes if they have given somebody certain favours. Sometimes it starts with the student sometimes it starts with the lecturer.
“A student does not work hard enough and they realise they are going to fail, then they think of another best foot to put forward and offer that. A male lecturer accedes or succumbs to that and therefore a half-baked student passes.
“The problem when you start it there its going into our newsrooms because the male student who has seen it happening or the female student who has gotten used to these kind of things will end up in the newsrooms. They are unsafe for our kids, young girls and the profession because the output is scandalous. Then you question why the standard is so low and maybe some of the reasons are found in this. Our appeal as government to you is let our classrooms be safe for our kids and therefore that will make our newsrooms safe,” said Mangwana.
Mangwana said the formation of ZIJEN came at the right time when the country needed to address the issue of poor standards in journalism and vowed to work together with them, especially in policy formulation.
“Zimbabwe has been grappling with issues of standards of journalism; we believe when you interact as professionals you benchmark and raise the standard. At the core of their (ZIJEN) objective for existence is the standard of journalism. Right now we don’t believe the standard of journalism in Zimbabwe is where it should be, we have news published without giving the other person the right of reply, and a lot of desktop journalism where people just go on X or Facebook and write a complete story without hearing from the author of that post; that speaks to journalism standards going down.
“When the lecturers come down to say can we do this better, can we share knowledge and innovation, we think it is a good thing. As government we will support this policywise and take policy suggestions from them on board as well as incorporate them into our policy thrusts. We believe they have a lot to contribute even as consultancy and stakeholders in our journey to improve standards in the media landscape in Zimbabwe,” said Mangwana.
ZIJEN vice president Linda Mujuru echoed Mangwana’s sentiments and highlighted the importance of recognizing female journalists.
“It is important that as we launch ZIJEN, we recognize the importance of helping female journalists prevail in this area. Most universities produce a lot of female journalists but how many of them end up practicing journalism, because of fear of what the industry is all about,” said Mujuru.
According to a recent study by WAN INFRA Women in News about 53 percent of women in Zimbabwean newsrooms have come across sexual harassment.
