The media are important part of civil society, reflecting different voices, competing interests and the clash of opinions within it. They should do more to help articulate needs and demands, shape opinion and attitudes, and provide a vehicle for political and cultural expression.

1. Akin Jimoh
ajimoh@devcomsnetwork.org

2.  Background
 Definition of Public Participation
 Stages of Participation in education
 Why Public Participation in Education
 Responsibility of the Education Journalist
 Case Study: How one community’s concerns
reached a national audience

3. The attitudes that parents, communities,
employers and the media have towards schools,
and the support that these groups can give, can
make an enormous difference to the quality of
education children receive. Where communities
take an active role, children’s access to
education, the quality of teaching and learning,
and school environments can improve
significantly
- ESSPIN Briefing Note 6

4. In view of this, open, participatory information and
communication processes lie at the heart of changing
societies and individual behaviour.
But they need to be put at the service of the
community, who want to be informed, to understand
and contribute to the debates
and decisions that affect their lives – at community,
national and international
levels.

5. Public Participation is a framework of
policies, principles, and techniques which
ensure that citizens and communities,
individuals, groups, and organizations have
the opportunity to be involved in a
meaningful way in making decisions that will
affect them, or in which they have an
interest.

6.  School Based Management Level
Communities have an important role to play
in ensuring all children are educated and for
raising teaching and learning standards in
schools.
 Public Policy Formulation Level
Public participation includes information
exchange, public consultation, engagement,
shared decisions, and shared jurisdiction.

7.  SBMC enhances effectiveness through decentralization of
power
 Policy implementation is improved with public consent
and commitment
 Community Participation yields higher quality decisions
 There is a growing demand for public participation
 The need for greater openness of decision processes
 Mistrust of expert advice
 Need to resolve conflicts when one rise
 It influences government priorities and processes

8.  The Need to set priorities
 Community participation helps to seek consensus
 Enhance public knowledge, understanding, and awareness
 The need to share information
 Community participation establishes/solidifies legitimacy
 Participation is fundamental to democracy
 Leads to effective allocate of scarce resources
 Leads to community ownership

9. Govt CSO
Media
Media
Provide Linkage
,
Community

10. The media owes the public a crucial
responsibility and must set agenda to focus
public attention on the Education Sector

11. Beyond looking at the failures of the government on
education, journalists can publish success stories
that bring into spotlight the efforts of concerned
bodies and citizens e.g. International agencies,
CSOs, Religious bodies, Foundations, Philanthropists
etc towards advancing education in Nigeria.

12.  To amplify the voices of
citizens and help them to
be involved in
development process
 Promote the needs and
demands of citizens

13. Perform its role as a watchdog to help
demand that government works and deepen
democratic values

14.  Play the umpire role, by helping
enlighten/remind citizens of their roles and
government of their responsibilities
 Influence government priorities and
processes

15.  Manchar Lake in Sindh province, Pakistan, is one of
Asia’s largest freshwater lakes. It is a major source of
water in the region which is occupied by Pakistan’s
poorest.
 The lake supports an estimated half a million people
through a variety of economic activities such as fishing.
 The recent land drainage project by the government of
Pakistan in the early 1990s to improve the drainage of
waterlogged agricultural lands in northern Sindh
polluted the lake with agricultural chemicals and
industrial waste pour into the lake from the Right Bank
Outfall Drain (RBOD).

16. Between 2005 and 2007 Panos London, Panos South Asia,
Shirkat Gah and the community of Manchar Lake worked
together to tackle the barriers that were preventing the
local community’s views from being heard.
By sharing their contacts and expertise, and combining
different communication methods including:
1.Theatre
2.Debate
3.Media

18.  Panos’ approach recognise the media as a sector
in its own right, with its own interests and
constraints, rather than purely as a conduit for
information.
 Panos therefore enabled two journalists to
spend several days at Manchar Lake, together
with local CSO workers and community members
during a public debate tagged people’s
assembly.

19. The vivid personal stories that resulted
provided both the motivation and the raw
material for a variety of media outputs.
1.NGO newsletter
2.Documentary television
3.Radio features
4.Current affairs television
5.Other media coverage including five Sindh
newspapers and the BBC radio Urdu Service
and online Urdu Website.

20. It brought different actors together generating
new relationships and inclusive dialogue and in
doing so, helped to bridge the communication
gap between ‘the governed’ and ‘the governors’.
Success include:
Community ownership
Focus on voices
Interactive theatre: inclusive and accessible
Bringing together interest groups
Engaging the local elite

21.  Making direct voices of affected individuals central to the public
debate, enhances the relevance, legitimacy, inclusiveness and
accessibility of that debate
 Using a number of communication methods, and producing
different outputs in order to engage a variety of audiences, is
important
 Building relationships and mutual understanding between
communities, NGOs and the media significantly increases
awareness and strengthens advocacy campaigns
 Local stories can raise national interest if they are conveyed well
 Involving local elites and gaining their support is crucial in
reaching higher-level policymakers

22. The media are important part of civil
society, reflecting different voices,
competing interests and the clash of opinions
within it. They should do more to help
articulate needs and demands, shape opinion
and attitudes, and provide a vehicle for
political and cultural expression.