Round Table Conference on “National Vocational Education Qualification Frame Work for Media & Entertainment Industry”

To develop the contours of a vocational educational qualification frame work, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) is organising a series of sector specific round table conferences to discuss the present scenario of soft and technical skills of the existing workforce in the age group of twenty to twenty five and contemporary requirement of industry. In this series, a Round Table on Media & Entertainment Industry was held under the Chairmanship of Shri Kapil Sibal, Union Minister Human Resource Development, and Communication & Information Technology here, last evening. The workshop was attended by 126 representatives of the Media & Entertainment Industry. After extensive discussions, it was decided to constitute a committee to prepare the draft curriculum for vocational education for this sector. The committee includes Shri S.S. Mantha, Chairman, AICTE, Shri Anurag Batra, CEO, Exchange for Media and members from different sectors of the media. Five sub-committees have also been constituted to prepare the draft curriculum for the different sectors such as TV, advertising, theatre, print, support sector for the media.

Two big concerns of employers today are finding good workers and training them. India has a large population base of 1.14 billion with demographic shift in favor of working age group (15-59 years). While the overall population is projected to grow at 1.4% over the next five years the working age is expected to grow at 2.15%. For this majority group, access to secondary education and vocational education and training (VET) is very crucial. There is a need to increase VET responsiveness to changing labor market demands, increasing the effectiveness of VET outcomes in improving the match between education and training demand and supply. Effective skill based technical education for employment is the key enabler for innovation.

There is a felt need for Vocational Education on account of water tight educational entry and exit levels, increasing drop outs, social non acceptance to vocational education as an alternate to higher education, loss of productive youth, mismatch between qualifications and industry needs and need to provide seamless integration between vocational education and regular higher education for enhancement in GER. Formal VE in India is implemented at senior secondary school level, and funded by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India. Total enrolment in VE courses of these schools is roughly 6, 00 000 at present.

Automobile sector, IT, ITES and telecom sector, media and entertainment sector hospitality and tourism sector, construction and infrastructure sector, financial services, retail services, banking and insurance sector are some of the potential vocational education receptors. AICTE also intends to organize Future round table conferences in the Construction sectors and Banking & Finance.

Source:pib