Define roles of PR profession

The Public Relations Association of Uganda (PRAU)’s new governing council headed by Sarah Kagingo as president officially started their two-year reign this month. PRAU must teach the public how it wants to be treated. The new team comes into office when the court of public opinion and politicians have issues with public relations practice in Uganda.

The new council is already defending and building the right reputation of the PR profession in Uganda. PRAU recently issued a clarification response in regard to President Museveni’s understanding of public relations role. A lot has been done over the years, and more needs to be done about the PR profession. PRAU must embark on a project to define the Ugandan PR scope of work. This will help define tasks a PR person or agency executes. You cannot control something that has no boundaries.

Review the issue of PRAU structures and membership to address issues of costs and who qualifies to become a member. Start vetting membership applications to the association. Even Special interest Facebook groups require you to answer questions before accepting your request to join.

Let us start with members filling in a PR questionnaire, and recommendation letters on top of their membership application forms. Let’s us not waste our energies on a PR license/permit to practice like lawyers. We have a bigger incompetence and posturing problem in Uganda. But this can be fixed with a local PRAU accreditation and training process. A licence isn’t needed when people ask for jobs or register their PR consultancy firms. We should focus on having an updated PR ethical code and publish it. Public relations profession requires rules and set boundaries that must be defined.

PRAU must be seen to act as a clearing house and reference centre on public relations personnel recruitment. I have seen job interview panels, who do not even know what PR is hence they end up recruiting the wrong people. Such people end up tarnishing the profession’s image. PRAU should work out a voluntary programme where members can sit on job interview panels for free when called upon.

Accreditation means you are worth it. Set up a credible accreditation board to handle submissions for practitioners. There can be classes and specialties of an accreditation. Earning points for PR people will lead to more PR-related articles, research, books, networking and more effective practitioners.

This year, PRAU makes 42 years since its inception. Let it be a milestone worth celebrating by the public. A memorial lecture and magazine in the name of the founder should be a move in the right direction. We have many crossovers to the PR profession from newsrooms, entertainment, management, and education fields. This is why PRAU needs a training unit. There must be home-grown training modules to cater for such. Frequent refresher courses will be a quick fix. Many spokespeople become overnight technical PR people and blunder.
Ivan N. Baliboola,
[email protected]