A Critical View on Communication Education and Training: An Evaluation in the Context of Communication High School

Abstract Today's media, due to its relations to either politics, capital or power domains, is in a structuring which makes concessions on freedom of press through horizontal-vertical-cross monopoly. In such a media structuring, it has become a must to bring up qualified personnel with a critical insight and a good command of today's technologies who can produce information/news for the public. In this era called as “information and communication age”, communication sector needs qualified personnel more than ever. In Turkey, communication education is provided at high school, associate degree, undergraduate and graduate degree levels. In addition to increasing numbers of communication faculties day by day, Anatolian Vocational High Schools, which provide “journalism”, “radio and television” and “information technologies” programs, give training to “intermediate personnel” for the sector. As students of those programs start to get their education and training at an early stage of their life, education given in these schools is of capital importance in the long run. In this study, secondary education institutions which specialize in communication education, specific to “journalism” and “radio and television” programs of Antalya Husniye Ozdilek Vocational High School will be scrutinized in terms of their teaching staff, students, curricula and technical equipment. “Possibility of an alternative communication” can be managed only with qualified, eligible personnel who have occupational ethics, and in this context, early period communication education becomes more of an issue.