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06 Aug 2017
7 Aug 2017<br />
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Amman -- The Ministry of Education has confirmed its support for disseminating the concepts of Media and Information Literacy (MIL) at its schools and offering all facilities that ensure the continuation of the MIL project. This is in view of its impact on enabling students to possess the skills of critical thinking and consciously understand the content produced by the media and posted on social media websites. <br />
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Walid al-Jallad, press spokesman for the ministry, said that the Ministry of Education would form a thematic team from its relevant departments to cooperate with the Jordan Media Institute (JMI), partner of UNESCO in implementing MIL activities, and other partners to implement the project on a large scale to include the largest number of schools and students throughout the governorates of the Kingdom. <br />
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This was stated during a session held at the JMI with the aim of assessing the experience of MIL clubs at schools during the pilot phase. This is within the project of "Support to Media in Jordan," implemented by UNESCO and funded by the EU.<br />
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The session was moderated by media expert Dr. Najlaa Omari, with the participation of representatives from the Ministry of Education and the teachers who ran the media clubs, besides representatives from the families of students and the local community. The participants underlined the great success of the project through enabling students to use critical thinking and raise questions when handling news. This is in addition to the role of the project in developing the skills of the participants.<br />
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The participants spoke about the importance of institutionalizing the project and expanding the curriculum prepared by the JMI and training a larger number of teachers. They stressed the importance of maintaining the interactive approach in the curriculum. They recommended organizing awareness-raising sessions and holding workshops that aim at disseminating these concepts and competences to families.<br />
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Bayan Tal, director of the project, said that JMI worked in partnership with the Ministry of Education and the Jordan Education Initiative to train 24 teachers and eight public schools. They, in turn, trained 121 students. This is in addition to training 95 members of the teaching staff at Al Hussein Bin Talal University and Al al-Bayt University and 168 students from both universities. <br />
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Tal added that the training material included a manual for teachers based on teacher curricula to learn the fundamentals of information and media and producing demonstration videos and practical trainings on the key headings, which are: Understanding media and the role of the individual as a source of information; handling pictures, understanding their impact, and verifying their credibility; deconstructing media messages, including hate speech; media ethics; Internet and its risks and potentials; and privacy and security. <br />
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For over 40 years, UNESCO has been a pioneer in the field of enhancing and strengthening MIL principles all over the world. Enabling citizens through MIL is a key requirement to sponsor fair access to information and knowledge and promote free and pluralistic media and information systems. <br />
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Since 2014, the UNESCO office in Amman has been working on implementing the "<a href="http://stmjo.com/en/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Training-Needs-Assessment.pdf">Support to Media in Jordan</a>" project in close cooperation with the Ministry of State for Media Affairs and media circles in Jordan. The project aims at supporting Jordan's efforts in promoting the freedom and independence of the media sector and the professionalism of its workers. <br />