Charles Sturt University (CSU) has signed an historic five-year agreement to deliver its undergraduate journalism degree to students living in Geraldton and other regional centres in Western Australia.

 

The agreement between the CSU School of Communication and Creative Industries in Bathurst and the Geraldton Universities Centre (GUC) will involve CSU lecturers teaching blocks of core journalism subjects in Geraldton, while other components of the degree will be delivered by online distance education.

 

“We’re excited by the opportunity to take our degree to students in Western Australia,” said Mr Chris McGillion, course coordinator for the CSU Bachelor of Communication (Journalism).

 

“We’re expecting a strong contingent of the West Australian Newspaper group’s regional newspaper cadets to be among our students at Geraldton next year. At the same time, the GUC will be supporting other would-be journalists in Geraldton and other regional centres to undertake our degree.”

 

CSU journalism lecturer Ms Kay Nankervis said the CSU journalism degree was identified by the GUC as an ideal program for delivering journalism qualifications because of the University’s reputation for training job-ready graduates and its experience in delivering distance education to regional students.

 

“This initiative will bring higher education learning to a centre such as Geraldton that is growing in population annually, and to other regional centres across Western Australia. We think the idea of mixing distance online delivery with the intensive blocks of study, which we’ll deliver in person in Geraldton each year, is the ideal model to provide a tertiary-level journalism education for those young people who want to stay nearer to home,” she said.

 

GUC director Ms Meredith Wills said the agreement with CSU is part of the GUC’s innovative model of delivery to bring a greater range of courses and choices to regional WA.

 

“This program is the result of our collaboration with local industry, community and Charles Sturt University, and highlights the synergies that GUC has with regional eastern state universities,” she said.