Media and Information Literacy: Teacher training program: Fourth regional consultative meeting, July 7th, 2020
The Communication & Information, and Education sectors of UNESCO’s Multisectoral Regional Office for West Africa-Sahel jointly are organizing the Fourth Regional Consultative Meeting on “Media and Information Literacy (MIL): Teacher Training Program”, and on the ‘Draft Global Standards for MIL Guidelines’.
In 2011, UNESCO spearheaded a process that led to the development of a Model for a teacher training Program on Media and Information Literacy; it included content related to information, media and technology skills.
The model has since been used to support training of trainers programs and the integration of its content into teacher training curricula in several African countries including South Africa, Nigeria, Gabon, etc.
MIL provides communities with key skills for lifelong learning and in all aspects of life. It is therefore essential that people know how, by improving their knowledge of the media, information and technologies, and their skills, they can more significantly engage in sustainable development, dialogue, human rights, peace and improved governance.
Much progress has been made in this direction. However, in view of new developments in the digital sector, in particular for artificial intelligence, the emergence of new concepts such as global citizenship and education for digital citizenship, and the exponential increase in disinformation, a second cycle of international dialogues around this crucial resource has proven to be necessary. It is indeed becoming urgent to foster the critical thinking and the digital well-being of people through MIL.
As a reminder, the first international consultative meeting on the MIL program for teachers took place in September 2019, in Belgrade, Serbia. The results of this first meeting are available in the Belgrade Recommendations on the ‘Draft Global Standard for MIL Guidelines’.
It is therefore with the aim of pursuing this prospective with stakeholders in Africa that UNESCO is organizing a consultation in French-speaking Africa, which will build on the results of previous consultations.
The fourth regional consultative meeting is scheduled for July 07th, 2020 and will have as main objectives:
- Collecting contributions to update the Media and Information Literacy Program for teachers and to improve the ‘Draft Global Standards for MIL Guidelines’;
- Making recommendations for the promotion of MIL in Africa.
The participants will mainly come from the academic world, teacher training institutions, youth organizations and the media sector from the following countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Congo, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Guinea, Mali, Niger, DRC, Senegal, Chad and Togo.