On April 7, the UNESCO Chair on Journalism and Communicationorganized and held the V International Scientific and Practical Conference“Models of Teaching International Journalism for Sustainable Development”(MTIJ).

  The event was organized jointly with the UNESCO Cluster Office inAlmaty, UNAI and the Ban Ki-moon Institute for Sustainable Development.

  The participants discussed journalism education during the pandemic, talkedabout the risks and opportunities of distance learning, and media coverage ofsustainable development goals.

  The discussion involved experts from the USA, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine,Poland, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. During five hours, the participants spoke infive languages.

Due to the significant time difference, some speakers connected to theconference even at night. Despite the difference in time zones and linguisticdiversity, everyone understood each other, because, as it turned out, many use thesame platforms and applications to train future international journalists.

It is worth noting that not only representatives of the teaching staff fromseveral countries met in the virtual conference room, but also practicing journalistswho, after the plenary session, held several incredibly useful master classes forstudents.

In the best traditions of democratic meetings, the students themselves spokeat the opening of the MTIJ, telling how the educational process andaccommodation in world universities was organized, taking into account the newsanitary requirements.

The round table, perhaps for the first time during the pandemic, broughttogether representatives of almost all Kazakhstani media organizations: “AdilSoz”, “MediaNet”, “Minber”, the “Foundation of Turkic-speaking Journalists”,Media Center of the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Kazakhstan andKazakhstani Communication Association.

As a result of the conference, a collection of participants’ works will bereleased; it will include not only reports, but also presentations, photographs, videoscripts, etc. The collection will certainly interest many media professionals.

At the closing ceremony of the event, giving feedback, the honorary guestsof MTIJ noted that al-Farabi KazNU, thanks to its technical and organizationalcapabilities, is able to host world-class events on its base.