Vice President John Dramani Mahama, on Tuesday tasked members of the African Council for Communication Education (ACCE) to critically assess the kind of training communicators should receive as well as the professional role they should play in the information age.
They should also make significant contributions towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015.
Vice President Mahama gave the task when he opened a three-day conference on the revival of ACCE, on the theme: "Communication Education and Practice in Africa - A Social Contract for the 21st Century," in Accra, being attended by members across the continent.
He paid tribute to the founding members of the ACCE for their worthy contributions in policy research and consultancy services to developments in Africa in the 1980s and 1990s, and stressed that the organisation could work with African governments to address the issues of poverty, illiteracy, diseases and other challenges being addressed under the MDGs.
"I believe in the motivation of the founding fathers of ACCE like Ghana's Professor Alex Quarmyne, the late Professor Paul Ansah, also of Ghana and Professor Alfred Opubor from Nigeria laid in establishing communication training programmes, which provided basic skills for practicing journalists."
Vice President Mahama said as they deliberated over the next three days they should spare a thought for Africa's MDGs and the role that communication could and should play in helping the continent to realize the goals by 2015.
"For Africa, they constitute a major component of the social contract between governments and the people they serve."
"Strides have been made in literacy, but illiteracy rates are still very low in many parts of the continent. Even though we laud the proliferation of the media more than 60 per cent of Africans live in rural areas with restricted access to most forms of the media mainly because of transportation and electricity challenges."
Vice President Mahama said Ghana's recent election experience underscored the need for the media to maintain a balance between commercial interests and democratic enterprise.
"This is because besides making money, the role of the media is to serve as the fourth estate and a check on power in burgeoning democracies. This aspect of social contract is critical if the balance of power is to prevail."
The Vice President recalled the growth of the media over the different eras in history, referring to the various theories of governmental control of the media, the Free Media Thinking and the Social Responsibility Concept and concluded that it was necessary for the media to be responsible and ethical at all times.
He noted that Ghana's media had grown through the various concepts and become vibrant with more than 60 newspapers, 150 FM stations and 10 local television channels.
Professor Clifford Nii Boye Tagoe, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana said the digital age, which was characterized by incredible achievements in science and technology, also improved the quality of various aspects of human life and contributed to the immeasurable gains of advancement in information and communication technology.
He said in spite of the tremendous political and socio-economic progress over the last century, Africa's identity had still been defined by the perennial issues of poverty, disease, conflict and mismanagement.
Prof. Tagoe noted that the many traditional African values were under threat and the continent seemed to be losing the very essence of her Africanness, because she had not been able to manage the complex interface effectively.
He said many Pan Africanists had drawn attention to this development and called for the need to rethink Africa, saying "you communication scholars, probably more than any others, need to heed this call and very quickly, knowing fully well Africa's communication and development needs and the role of the media and Information Technology to meet these needs."
Prof. Tagoe called for the need for a re-definition of professionalism which includes issues of journalistic values and ethics, application of realistic models and theories to global issues and local priorities and promotion of scholarship.
Mr. Cecil Blake, Member of ACCE, said the council was faced with challenges such as wider organisational crisis at the continental level, cash flow problems, organisational lapses at the headquarters in Nairobi,
He said the problems were threatening the ACCE with an irrecoverable collapse.
Mr Blake said the gradual death of a continental organisation that functioned brilliantly during it's hey days was unbearable as the ACCE comprised some of Africa's most brilliant minds.
He called for immediate action and expressed the hope that the ACCE would rise up and situate itself as the harbinger of "good" moral communication.