SECTOR 4 4.7 Media professionals have access to training facilities offering formal qualification programmes as well as opportunities to upgrade skills Various tertiary institutions in Namibia offer formal qualification programmes in media fields. The Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) offers a Bachelor of Journalism and Media Technology degree, as well as a Bachelor Honours degree in this same field. The bachelor degree can be done full-time (three years), parttime, or through distance studies. The one-year honours degree is offered as a part-time course, providing practising journalists with an opportunity to upgrade their qualifications on the job. UNAM offers a Bachelor Degree in Media Studies and students have to choose one of three streams in which to specialise: PR, Electronic Media or Print Media; as well as a research-based Master of Arts degree in Media Studies. UNAM’s department of Information and Communication Studies also houses UNAM Radio: a campus radio station licensed as a community broadcaster and UNAM Echo – a student-led publication. Both NUST and UNAM have theoretical and practical components to their programmes and students are required to complete an internship before graduating. The College of the Arts’ (COTA) media school provides Diplomas in TV Production, Sound Production, Radio Production and New Media. COTA’s training is more technical and it does well in this regard. However, an identified shortfall is that its graduates are not well-versed on issues of ethics and certain aspects of journalism, as they are not trained as journalists. Other smaller colleges may also offer media-related courses. For example, Triumphant College’s School of Management and Business Studies offers a Diploma programme in Journalism and Media Studies. The quality of students who graduated from these institutions, however, is questionable – an issue that raises concern even beyond media graduates and which speaks to the failing of the country’s education system on the whole. Despite the majority of journalists having some sort of tertiary education or qualification, ‘It is frightening the stuff we have to correct. The training is good, but not sufficient. One of the most frustrating things or challenges we face are with the basics, like grammar and writing and full-stops. We still have to say to a qualified journalist, “Did you see that you didn’t put in a full-stop?”.’ Plagiarism, the lack of a reading culture even amongst journalists, a lack of specialised training on key issues and topics and an inability to think critically and to ask hard-hitting, probing questions are also key challenges that editors face with new reporters. 55 AFRICAN MEDIA BAROMETER NAMIBIA 2018