Journalism Students To Do National Service
It never rains but pours, as the Mugabe regime tightens its grip on the media

Report by ZimOnline
(South Africa)

The Zimbabwe government has directed the country’s largest journalism training school to accept only students who have completed a controversial national youth service training programme, critics blame for brainwashing youths into zealots of President Robert Mugabe’s ruling ZANU PF party.

Churches and human rights groups say graduates of the youth training programme that is run by former and serving military officers routinely hunt down supporters of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party beating, torturing and sometimes murdering them.

The government, which strongly denies that graduates of the youth programme victimise opposition supporters, had said in the past that state tertiary colleges should enroll only students holding national service certificates. The government had however not insisted on the state-owned Harare Polytechnic’s Division of Mass Communication to abide by this requirement.

But the government’s Media and Information Commission (MIC) on Monday last week issued a written directive, a copy of which was shown to ZimOnline, that the journalism school should ensure all new students had “passed through (national youth service) training centres, have undertaken community work, and possess 5 Ordinary levels passes and 2 passes at Advanced level.”

The MIC - accused of forcibly closing down newspapers critical of Mugabe’s government and ordering the arrest of scores of independent journalists – also directed that a committee of selectors be set up to vet and approve applicants to the school of journalism.

The state media watchdog nominated Harare Polytechnic vice-principal Runyararo Magadzire to head the selectors panel which it said would also include two external members from local media houses nominated by itself.

A senior official from the department of National and Strategic Studies will also be appointed on the panel, according to the MIC.

The department of National and Strategic Studies runs political education courses at government tertiary institutions which are compulsory for all students and which mainly focus on the history of Zimbabwe’s struggle for independence from colonial rule and the roles played by Mugabe and ZANU PF in that struggle.

Harare Polytechnic Principal, Stephen Raza, was not immediately available for comment on the new recruitment criteria for students that observers say is an open attempt by Mugabe’s government to ensure the college that trains the bulk of journalists in the country produces pliable and uncritical journalists.

Sources at the college however said Raza and his administration had written to MIC chairman Tafataona Mahoso questioning the new student enrolment requirements.

Mahoso - found by the Supreme Court to have shown bias against the banned Daily News newspaper when he rejected an application by the paper for a licence to resume publishing – was not reachable for comment on the matter.

Under the government’s tough Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, Mahoso’s MIC is tasked to facilitate the training of journalists. But the controversial law does not stipulate that the commission should lay enrolment rules for prospective journalism students.

Apart from the Harare Polytechnic’s Division of Mass Communication there are about three other smaller and privately-owned journalism training schools in Zimbabwe.

The attempt by the MIC to control student enrolment at the largest school of journalism comes as the government is also in the process of enacting legislation to allow state agents to intercept internet and cell phone communications between private individuals and organisations in the country.
Edited