BUK to Upgrade Dept of Mass Comm to Faculty:
Management of the Bayero University, Kano(BUK) has concluded arrangements to upgrade the department of Mass Communication to a faculty in order to meet the global changes in the media industry.
The Head of Department of Mass Communication, Dr. Balarabe Maikaba who disclosed this during a lecture on media freedom organised by the department to mark the World Press Freedom day, said the new faculty would be known as Faculty of Communications and Film Studies.
He said the faculty which is expected to be established in next academic session would comprise departments of Journalism, Applied Communication and Film Studies.
“Hopefully, the Mass Communications would become a faculty in next academic session. Being an experienced journalist, the Vice Chancellor of the University, Professor Abubakar Adamu Rasheed is very passionate about the upgrading and he has provided all the necessary support for it,” he said.
For effective take off of the faculty, he said facilities at the department are being strengthened and that the department now has two professors including the famous Professor Umaru Pate of the University of Maiduguri who recently transferred his service to the department.
In his paper entitled “ Media Freedom for a better future: Shaping the post-2015 Development Agenda” , former Director General of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Dr. Tonnie Iredia stressed the need for the total overhauling of the practice of journalism in the country.
“If we want to give the press freedom, we should have freedom of the press in the constitution and not freedom of speech as it is now in the constitution. In the constitution of the United States, there is general freedom and there is also specific freedom in their constitution, which says; ‘nothing shall be done to abridge the press,” he said. (Daily Trust)