NUKU'ALOFA (Matangi Tonga / Pacific Media Watch):The Media and Journalism programme at the Tonga Institute for Higher Education (TIHE) has welcomed a donation of equipment worth $15,000 from the Auckland University of Technology's School of Communication Studies.
The equipment included digital cameras, video cameras and TV monitors to be used by students in the Certificate and Diploma Media and Journalism courses at TIHE.
Programme Coordinator Viliami Lolohea said that the secondhand equipment from the AUT media programmes was greatly appreciated as it would help improve the quality of the courses offered.
He said the two-year programme currently had 15 students enrolled in the certificate programme and four students were working for their diplomas.
The students would learn how to use the important media tools before they can be recruited into newsrooms, he said.
Viliami said he planned to engage students to go out into the field and film documentaries, do interviews and shoot pictures, in addition to writing stories of issues important in Tonga.
"It is vital that these students are equipped with the right set of skills that newsrooms need now in Tonga, and I hope that the equipment will help us achieve that," he said.
TIHE offered Tonga's first formal training course in journalism which was launched in 2007, with the first graduates in 2010.
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Pacific Media Watch
