BUILDING BRIDGES THEORY AND PRACTICE IN MEDIA EDUCATION

By Aazadi Fateh Muhammad

In this technologically equipped era with the increasing pace of changes in media industry it is mandatory for the media educators and students to stand on the cutting edge of professional practice. Having in mind the significance of practical training for media students the Department of Mass Communication, Federal Urdu University of Arts Sciences and Technology Karachi launched one day television transmission project. The objective of the project was to have an intensive television production activity which provides experience to media academicians and students and enable them to understand production processes, challenges and pressures.

The preparations went intense day by day, from morning show, talk shows on social issues, Federal University past, present and future, women in media, poetry, media education, Pakistani journalism, journalists and their informal gathering, to dramas and songs, everything had been included in the content of one day transmission. The waves of thrill and excitements travelled from teachers to students. Different teams were made to handle scripts, guests’ line up, camera handling, photography, and program directions, set designing, acting and anchoring. 

The color and feel of was more emphasized when field practitioners from newspapers, television and radio were equally added in the discussions and content of transmission. The basic functions of media i.e. content production for television information, education, entertainment and research may be seen fairly divided into the various contents of programs. The transmission was supported, attended and participated by senior journalists, academicians and scholars including Idrees Bakhtiar, Shamim Akhter, Wussatullah Khan, Mazhar Abbass, Qaiser Mehmood, Sheen Farrukh, Afia Salam, Dr Fouzia Khan, Suhail Sangi, Rana Aqeel, Ashraf Khan, Khalid Farshori, Aqeel Abbass Jaffri, A.H. Khanzada, Tauqeer Chughtai, Naeem Sameer, Zaheer Zarf, Dilawar Abbass

Vice Chancellor Federal Urdu University of Arts Sciences & Technology Karachi Prof Dr Zafar Iqbal,  Vice Chancellor University of Karachi Prof. Dr. Muhammad Qaiser,Dean Faculty of Arts, Dr. Seemi Naghmana Tahir, Dean Faculty of Management Sciences, Prof. Salman D. Muhammad, Dean Faculty of Educaiton Dr. Shahida Sajjad, Dean Faculty of Science Dr Arif Zubair, Senate Member of FUUAST Prof. Nasir Abbass, President Teachers Association (Abdul Haq ) Prof. Dr. Ismael Moosa, Secretary General Prof. Najam ul Arfeen, Treasurer Prof. Iqrar Qureshi

This is first of its kind activity by any public sector university in Pakistan. The effort was immensely appreciated and welcomed, Prof Dr Zafar Iqbal vice chancellor Federal Urdu University presided the inaugural show of the transmission. He said that the practical learning and training plays as backbone in media education and I feel pride to say that our department of mass communication significantly provides field exposures to its graduate students. We want to see our university in best twenty universities of the country in the coming years. For better academic and research environment in the university, teachers and students have to work together with university administration. We do our best to ensure the provision of basic facilities and equipments, and hopefully one day our university will beat other institutions in quality of education training and research.

Prof Dr Tauseef Ahmed Khan, chairman department of Mass Communication is the team leader who guarantees the effective and successful completion of all the projects. He said our department teachers and students are very talented and active, if we are provided with more modern facilities like radio studio, internet café and e-library we can stand in the field with most efficient results. He further added that our students belong to lower middle class and we charge them nominal semester fees, in this scenario our funding and budgets depend on University grant and external sponsorships, for which we have to put extra efforts and time. It becomes easy to put more time and effort when we see our graduates being welcomed and accommodated in media industry in higher number than other university graduates. In May 2013 from total selection of mass communication students in Karachi for the election cells of various television channels and newspapers the percentage of Federal Urdu University mass communication graduates were selected was highest.

The initial idea of transmission was conceived by Mr. Erfan Aziz who is part of the faculty of department of Mass Communication. In explaining his idea he said that we are fortunate to have television production studio in our department, normally it is used to teach students basic technical skills for television production and they prepare short documentaries and dramas as part of their course assignments. The concept of television transmission for a day was to help them indulge in the reality of production environment, to give them a 360 exposure of media life for students so they may experience the pressures of deadline, time and work and may learn their expertise before joining the field. It also made them understand their specific strengths and weaknesses.he department understands that media jobs and journalism require passion and not the university degrees alone and it strives to create a passionate media / journalism leader for the media industry in Pakistan and abroad.

The team consists of faculty members and final year students headed by Mr Syed Raza Arif, young and energetic faculty and in charge for television production courses.  He said that our students have worked on this television transmission as their project and only by such practical assignments we can prepare media students for the modern media market. This was an outstanding effort by the students for the students and it will help in their skill development.

The other team members include Prof Dr Seemi Naghmana Tahir, Prof Saeed Usmani, Prof Auj e Kamal, Prof Shaheen Akhter, Dr Masroor Khanum, Ms Huma Waris, myself (Aazadi), Mr. Tayyeb Jajjvi and others.

Pakistani mass media went through revolutionary changes in past decade; at the same time media literacy and education are also becoming essential for media practitioners. Practical learning projects like this television transmission by the academic sector in media education are a good omen for country media and its future. In this era of global recession when job opportunities for University graduates are shrinking globally, electronic media in Pakistan is experiencing expansion and new television channels are coming up providing numerous job opportunities for skilled graduates. In this scenario this exercise by the department of Mass Communication is going to promise bright future for its students.