Pedagogical sciences / 2. Problems of specialists training
Cand.Phil.Sci. Kungurova O. G., Cand.Ped.Sci.
Kudritskaya M. I.
Kostanay State
University, Kostanay State Teacher Training Institute, Kazakhstan
About ecological
training of journalists in Kazakhstan
Development of an optimum model of journalistic education is one of the
higher education problems not only in the CIS. Search of its solution is
conducted at different levels, in various structures. In recent years media NGO
was actively connected to the problem of journalistic education in the Republic
of Kazakhstan. In January, 2009 there started a two-year partner project
"Development of Independent Regional Mass Media by means of Qualitative
Business Journalism Development". As the main organizer of the project the
Kazakhstan public fund "Desenta" acted together with the
international center of journalism of MediaNet. In implementation of the
project 9 journalistic public organizations from eight regions of the country
were involved. Within the project on a competitive basis expert journalists
developed eight authentic special courses for students of a bachelor degree in
the specialty "Journalism". Among them is the course "Ecological
Journalism". In training programs of faculties and departments of
journalism of the vast majority of the Kazakhstani higher educational
institutions this special course is absent though the need for it is dictated
by a condition of modern society, the modern media industry in Kazakhstan.
One of the reasons of "braking" of ecojournalism in Kazakhstan
is shortage of experts in this area. In higher educational institutions of the
country they do not train journalists-ecologists. Until recently students of
the specialty "Journalism" in the higher educational institutions in
Kazakhstan have not faced an ecology phenomenon at all as in the State Standard
of Higher Education this discipline is simply absent. The situation only
changed in 2008 when the course
"Ecology and Sustainable Development" was shown as obligatory the state
curricula of a bachelor degree of higher education institutions of the country
in volume of 2 credits. Formation of a complete idea of the main regularities
of a sustainable development of the nature and society became a main objective
of a course. As tasks the following provisions were formulated:
• to study the main regularities
of live organisms functioning, ecosystems of various level of the organization,
the biosphere as a whole and their stability;
• to create knowledge of the
main regularities of interaction of components of the biosphere and ecological
consequences of economic activity of the humanity, especially under the
conditions of an environmental management intensification;
• to create modern ideas of
concepts, strategy and practical problems of sustainable development in various
countries and the Republic of Kazakhstan;
• to develop students’ broad integrated, objective and creative approach
to the discussion of the most acute and complex problems of ecology,
environmental protection and sustainable development.
It is clear that with such aiming the course has a general education
ecological focus. Graduates of the higher educational institutions in
Kazakhstan can meet ecological journalism incidentally only in practice.
However special features and subtleties of ecojournalism are known far not to
everyone even among the skilled journalists. Still not all Kazakhstani mass
media workers have realized that ecological journalism isn't simply a thematic section of
journalism. So even a comprehensively developed journalist of RK without
special ecological preparation faces serious problems today. In the society of
Kazakhstan there have developed a huge number of the problems connected with
the state of environment which demand the fastest solution. And in this
situation mass media are the main source of ecological information for the
majority of citizens. Since mass media carry out not only information function,
but also educational, a lot of things depend on journalists’ professionalism,
on their ecological literacy, adequacy, and on quality of ecologically
significant information submission. Today mass media in many respects define
how people will treat environment; they form the level of ecological culture in
the society. The main miscalculations in ecological materials of the Kazakhstan
mass media include superficiality of presenting the burning issues, caused by a
lack of basic ecological knowledge of the authors; aspiration to sensational
nature, confidence that it is only possible to attract the public to
environmental problems by having frightened it; the bias, resulting from the
fact that in ecological materials alternative data are often ignored, and as a
consequence, positivity is absent; there are frequent facts of incorrect
information submission and even distortion of the data. Owing to shortage of
their own knowledge, reliable sources of information, haste, fear of
interception of the found "fried" facts by their competitors, such
"ecojournalists" reduce function of the materials only to informing.
Ecological journalism of the countries of the Central Asian region is
relatively young. The word ‘ecology’ quite recently - in the mid-nineties - was
in use only with experts. We will agree: in a situation of formation or lack of
purposeful vocational journalistic ecological training the extremism for
"green" mass media is quite natural. Here only the shaft of negative
information generates feeling of hopelessness at the general public and levels
desire to undertake anything.
What and how to teach future ecojournalists? For this question in
Kazakhstan there is still no definite answer. Experience of NGO in training of
ecojournalism professionals in RK only starts being acquired.
Thus, the question of need of professional ecological journalists
training in the Post-Soviet countries of Central Asia stays to this day in a
discussion stage.