2nd edition of the UNESCO Model Media and Information Literacy Curriculum for Educators and Learners

Today was the launch of Media and Information Literate Citizens: Think critically, Click Wisely (Second Edition of the UNESCO Model Media and Information Literacy Curriculum for Educators and Learners) It was launched by Audrey Azoulay, Director-General, UNESCO; Mr Xing Qu, Deputy Director-General, UNESCO; Ana Brnabić, Prime Minister of the Republic of Serbia; Vera Jourova, Vice President and Commissioner, European Commission; and H.E. Dr. Monique Nsanzabaganwa, Deputy Chairperson, African Union Commission. 

They all stressed the problem of disinformation and misinformation, and how this had become a graver problem during the pandemic, and also how disinformation could threaten democracy. There was also a little discussion about implementation of the curriculum from Stefania Giannini, Assistant Director-General for Education, UNESCO & Gordana Čomić, Minister for Human and Minority Rights and Social Dialogue, Republic of Serbia, which touched on points such as: the need for capacity building for educators etc.; the sensitivity of some issues and how this needed to be taken account of when implementing the curriculum; the need to incorporate in formal education, and also informally (like the campaign with health messages on cigarette packets "educate with simple message").

I thought the webinar would come to the end without mentioning libraries, but in fact the very last question that was posed to Stefania Giannini asked about them, and she did say that they were vital (though I'm not sure she was considering the role of libraries in formal education). The video of the launch (81 minutes) is here https://youtu.be/3EuHe2BaYrI

The page https://en.unesco.org/news/media-and-information-literate-citizens-think-critically-click-wisely already has a summary of the curriculum, but the full curriculum document is just "coming soon" and they didn't say when it would be released -I will blog again and discuss the curriculum when that happens (I would guess, next week). This is an important publication, especially with this high level support. I think it is up to the information literacy community to make sure that they take part in discussion and implentation, since otherwise (as noted above) there is a tendency to forget both the role of libarians and the "information" part of media and information literacy.