The role of elementary school administrations is crucial in the promotion of media literacy among elementary school students, who will have the opportunity to study that subject as an elective from the next school year, it was said at a meeting dedicated to the subject's promotion.
The meeting, "The Importance of Introducing Media Literacy as an Optional Subject in Primary Schools", is part of a campaign to promote the subject that students will choose in the seventh, eighth or ninth grade of primary schools, and will be taught by all teachers who have completed accredited training at the Institute of Education.
As announced by the Media Institute, the subject program for media literacy, a manual for teachers and the valuable experiences of practitioners in teaching media literacy were presented to school administrations, teachers, and educational institutions.
In addition to school administrations and teaching staff, representatives of the Ministry of Education, educational institutions, teaching practitioners, authors of the subject program participated in the meeting.
"The promotion of the course is of key importance so that as many as several tens of thousands of elementary school students, as many as are enrolled in the older classes this school year, choose it as much as possible, who will have a total of up to 34 hours of media literacy per year," the announcement says.
Acting Director of the Institute for Education, Zoja Bojanić Lalović, speaking about the importance of media literacy and the promotion of subjects in schools, said that the public is exposed to a flood of manipulations and that for today's generation, it is important not only to carefully read and share media messages, but also to know how to create them with quality.
"The introduction of the subject in primary schools is an important step in that direction," she believes.
Director of the Media Institute, Olivera Nikolić, pointed out the need to encourage children to think critically about media content, and to demand higher quality from media channels, which is the task of media literacy.
According to her, the achievement of that goal requires the support of the educational system, parents, and the media.
The head of the Department for Public Relations and General Affairs at the Agency for Electronic Media, Elvira Salagić Ceković, expressed her satisfaction with the fact that the importance of media literacy in society has been recognized.
She reminded that the findings of AEM's research on the use of media "Children, parents and media" show that children spend nine hours a day in front of various screens during the working week, and significantly more during the weekend.
Salagić Ceković stated that this speaks of the need for more conscious use of the media through media education.
Professor of media literacy and one of the authors of the program for high schools, Bozena Jelušić, pointed out that the educational system is already facing the challenge of artificial intelligence and tools such as chat bots.
"In that sense, we are late. Media literacy must be the most important subject and one class a week is not enough. Otherwise, we will lose the battle for the school," she said.
The authors of the subject program and manual for teachers, Svetlana Jovetić Koprivica and Miroslav Minić, said that media literacy is necessary for those whose attitudes, opinions and ideas are still in the process of being created.
"If we take a responsible approach to raising young people, we can count on leaving the world in safe hands," they said.
Principals of primary schools "Pavle Rovinski" and "21. maj" from Podgorica, Dijana Laković and Leposava Furtula, believe that media literacy should be a compulsory subject in all schools in Montenegro.
Laković assessed that the pressure should be "increased" on the educational authorities to make such a decision.
The Institute stated that there is a great interest in the subject among teachers, as evidenced by the fact that only in January of this year, 27 students completed accredited training for this subject.
They said that there is similar interest in the next three trainings that will be organized from February to May this year.
The promotion will cover 153 schools in all three regions of Montenegro, northern, central and southern.
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