Education, Communication and Development: A Policy Perspective

Education requires reciprocity of the interests and activities of a wide range of stakeholders who are part of the developmental process. To ensure successful partnership among this vast array of stokeholds, communication plays vital role and it is necessary and indispensible. It should be part of the strategic planning which requires of being comprehensive, holistic and inclusive. The content of dialogue and its approaches are also equally important in the discourse of development. Through information-sharing, building consensus and confidence, by advocacy and social mobilization, communication strategies provides support for educational policies and their implementation at various levels. This is essential for the leaders, communities, civil society groups, media and donors, and those who are recognises the need to work together to have a better education and development. Education and development are coterminous and supports and strengthen each other. However, it is quite impossible without proper communication and strategies. Further, strategic communication is not institutionalized in the structures and practices of educational affairs. This is also in case of NGOs working on education issues. Hence, this paper advocates developing and framing a policy perspective to create enabling environment and instruments by which national or sectoral communication strategies for education can emerge. This is possible through framing the curriculum, training of communication officers and journalists reporting on education. This training needs to inculcate some basic elements of multi-dimensional communication strategies for education.