BBC World Service journalist Kati Whitaker has won the Education Journalist of the Year Award for Outstanding Education Reporting. The Award is for the radio programme New Term in Kosovo, first broadcast by the BBC World Service in January 2005.
The programme focused on the difficulties facing Rahovec, Kosovo’s first multi-ethnic school. The judges said the programme was an outstanding piece of radio journalism, “an ambitious attempt to blend current affairs, history, ethnicity, war and education into a report for the listener that succeeds amply”.
The judges said the programme was an outstanding piece of radio journalism, “an ambitious attempt to blend current affairs, history, ethnicity, war and education into a report for the listener that succeeds amply”. They praised Kati for her “lovely radio voice” that “draws the listener in” and the intelligent narrative that was, “at times particularly touching”.
Kati Whitaker is a freelance reporter and producer. She has worked in education journalism for 10 years. The annual awards are run by the education sector of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. A package made from the same material was also transmitted by BBC Radio 4 in The Learning Curve.