SLCJ awards its diplomas for 12th successive year
The 12th Diploma Awarding Ceremony for the Batch of 2015 was held at the Sri Lanka College of Journalism (SLCJ) premises on August 24.
The chief guest at the ceremony was Knut Nyflott, Charge d’ Affaires of the Norwegian Embassy. Sri Lanka College of Journalism Chairman Dr. P Keshvarajah and the Sri Lanka Press Institute CEO Kumar Lopez were present on the occasion.
This year saw 14 students graduating from the Diploma in Journalism program, with Dilusha Kudaligamage receiving the best student award in the Sinhala Medium and Ibrahim Maahil Mohamed of the Maldives receiving the best student in the English Medium, which was awarded for the first time in the history of the SLCJ to a foreign student, a media release from the College said.
The Diploma in Journalism program caters to the four key media segments namely Print, Television, Radio and the Social Media, covering subjects such as Reporting and Writing, New Media, International Coverage, Media Law, etc. The one-year full-time diploma pro- gramme is the flagship course of the College, which also provides the internships with recognised media Institutions as part of its curriculum. The course was designed by the Thomson Foundation in London, along with a panel drawn from both the industry and academia, taking into consideration the UNESCO model.
The SLCJ which is an operational arm of the Sri Lanka Press Institute was established in 2004 by the media industry with the assistance of Sweden, Norway and Denmark to train potential journalists, especially school leavers who have sat the Advanced Level Exams.
The SLCJ was also accredited in conducting mid-career training programmes in the media industry throughout the island. During these years of operation, SLCJ has trained around 500 journalists who presently work as journalists or practice in the media industry.
The constituents of the SLCJ Board are the Newspaper Society of Sri Lanka, The Editors’ Guild of Sri Lanka, The Free Media Movement, the Sri Lanka Working Journalists' Association and the Sri Lanka Press Institute.