NSPC 2019 to be held in Lingayen, Pangasinan – DepEd

• Source: https://news.mb.com.ph/2018/11/02/nspc-2019-to-be-held-in-lingayen-pangasinan-deped/
• Saturday, November 3, 2018

By Merlina Hernando-Malipot

The Department of Education (DepEd) has announced the conduct of the 2019 National Schools Press Conference (NSPC) to provide anew a venue for students where they can enhance their skills in different journalistic endeavors and approaches.

Undersecretary Atty. Nepomuceno Malaluan, in DepEd Memorandum No. 167 series of 2018, announced that the 2019 NSPC is scheduled from January 28 to February 1. It will be held in Lingayen, Pangasinan with Region 1 as host region and the Pangasinan 1 as the host schools division.

Anchored on the theme, “Fostering 21st Century Skills and Character-based Education through Campus Journalism,” the 2019 NSPC aims to “demonstrate understanding of the importance of Journalism by expressing it through different journalistic endeavors and approaches.”

The conference, as Malaluan explained in the memo, also aims to “sustain advocacy on social consciousness and environmental awareness” and to “provide a venue for enriching learning experience for students interested in Journalism as a career or those who intend to use skills sets learned through campus journalism to give them better edge in their chosen careers.”

The 2019 NSPC, Malaluan added, also aims to “promote responsible journalism and fair and ethical use of social media” as well as to “enhance journalistic competence through healthy and friendly competitions.”

The NSPC consists of individual and group contests, school paper contests as well as concurrent sessions with workshops. The individual contests include news writing, features writing, editorial writing, sports writing, copyreading and headline writing, science and technology writing, photojournalism, editorial cartooning, and column writing (for exhibition only).

School paper contests will cover the news section, features section, editorial section, science and technology section, sports section and layout and page design. Meanwhile, the group contests are radio script writing and broadcasting contests, collaborative desktop publishing (CPD) contest, online publishing contest (for secondary level), and TV script writing and broadcasting contests (for secondary level).

The NSPC is pursuant to Republic Act No. 7079 or the Campus Journalism Act of 1991. Recognizing and respecting intellectual property rights, DepEd said it adheres to the rule concerning plagiarism. DepEd also reiterates its “stand to disqualify school papers found to have copied and published texts, graphics and other materials without duly acknowledging their sources.” DepEd added that “any form of plagiarism in all competitions as proven by the board of judges shall be ground for disqualification.”