The World Journalism Education Council released their latest census results on journalism education yesterday. The announcement coincides with this week's World Journalism Education Congress at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa.
The stated purpose of the World Journalism Education Census is to identify journalism education programs around the world and provide contact information and a link to those programs Web sites.
As of July 5th the census was tracking 2,338 journalism education programs in the world.
Continent Programs Percent
Africa 214 9.15%
Asia 645 27.59%
Europe 530 22.67%
North America 691 29.56%
Oceania 53 2.27%
South America 205 8.77%
Total 2,338 100.00%
The results suggest that 29.56 per cent of all journalism programs and education centres (691) are in North America. Asia hosts 645 programs, while Europe is home to 530. "The census, which counts centres of journalism training rather than individual degree courses, included: higher education-affiliated courses; practitioner and privately-operated education programs, whose quality can be verified; and finally courses that are being run, but whose quality has not been verified."
According to the latest statistics, there are 99 such programs in the UK, 70 in Germany and 53 in France. Outside of Europe China operates 104 programs, according to the census, while Australia has 34.
Initial figures from the census released in 2007 suggested that there were 1,859 journalism education programs in the world. This rose to 2,487 in 2008, the second year of the census project. The census is a project of the Knight Foundation link, one of the largest non-profit journalism initiatives in the world. Knight has invested more than $400 million since 1950.
Although the number of educational programs has varied dramatically from 1,859 programs in the first census in 2007 to the current count of 2,338, this should not be necessarily interpreted as actual changes in the number education centres, rather, these changes reflect increasing precision in the methodology. Given sufficient time, however, the census promises to be an invaluable tool for educators and scholars trying to better understand how journalism is taught around the world and what can be done to strengthen the effort.
The census continues to collect information about journalism programs worldwide.
Posted by Colin Heilbut
Source: Journalism.co.uk, WJEC