This academic year the College of Journalism of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Comenius in Bratislava and the Penta Foundation together with the weekly business magazine Trend opened already the fourth year of mutual cooperation in teaching one-semester course Basics of Economics in Journalistic Practice.
"The objective of the cooperation of the College of Journalism with experts is to familiarize students of the fourth year with the basics of economics, finance, and commercial law for the needs of their future practice in media," said doc. PhDr. Jozef Vatrál, PhD., head of the College of Journalism, and added: "Future journalists, whom we are educating will directly or indirectly encounter principles of economics in each area of their activities; therefore, we consider important that the basics of economics is a mandatory part of the study program of our College."
The course Basics of Economics in Journalistic Practice runs during the winter semester and ends with an examination. Individual economic topics are presented by experts of the private equity group Penta.
"This course creates sufficient space for the students to become familiar with theoretical basis and correct professional economic terminology and helps them to orientate in the issues of macro and micro-economy, banking, tax system, and legislation," specified the project targets Katarína Stupková, the Penta Foundation Manager.
"We have tried to create a structure of the entire course and individual lectures so that the course provides the students with optimum combination of theoretical information and practical experience of experts," added Katarína Stupková.
At the end of a cycle of lectures, each student prepares a written study in the form of an essay dealing with an economic problem. The author of the best work will win one-month stipendiary stay in the reputed economic weekly Trend and will be allowed to apply information from lectures in practical economic journalism. Evaluation of the fourth year of the project will take place in February 2007.