New Delhi: Digital education and dynamic skilling are fast becoming a need of the hour. As a part of achieving self-reliance through the ‘Amrit Mantra’ of digital education and dynamic skilling, a webinar on the implementation of Budget 2022 relating to the education sector was recently organized. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also addressed the webinar. Concerned Union Ministers, key stakeholders from education, skill development, science, technology and research were present on the occasion. The webinar was part of the new practice of discussion and dialogue with the stakeholders before and after the budget.
The breakout session on the topic Strengthening Industry-Skill Linkage in AVGC was moderated by Biran Ghose, Country Head, Technicolour India. The session was co-chaired by Secretary Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Apurva Chandra and Additional Secretary, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Atul Tiwari. The panelists included Ashish Kulkarni, CEO of Punaryug Pvt Ltd, Munjal Shroff, Co-founder Graphiti Multi Media Pvt Ltd and Ketan Yadav, COO-VFX Producer, Red Chillies Entertainments Pvt Ltd. At the outset, Biren Ghose, who moderated the session, underlined that the session was focused on the question of how to make the budget announcement an economic reality.
In his opening remarks, Chandra said that the announcement on AVGC Task Force in the budget speech is a momentous event which recognizes the importance of the AVGC sector and the role it plays in creating employment in the country. The sector can provide an avenue to skilled manpower and become the backbone of the media and entertainment industry as a whole. Shri Chandra added that India can become the content creation factory of the world in this sector. He underlined that the Ministry will incorporate the inputs from this session into the terms while constituting the Task Force.
He also said that the sector has seen tremendous growth in the past seven years and with proper impetus can soon become a world leader. He further said that the content creation part of gaming requires high skills and we want to focus on that through the task force. Atul Tiwari, during his remarks, said that AVGC sector which has been under-recognized for long is now not only being recognised but is growing at a fast pace and now the sector is in need of intellectual capital and education.
He gave a brief roundup of the activities being undertaken by Ministry of Skill including PM Kaushal Vikas Yojana, both short and long term training under ITIs and PM Kaushal Kendra Centres et al. Shri Tiwari assured the audience of any support that may be required for skilling in the sector. Ashish Kulkarni stated that stars have never been better aligned for the sector. India has over a hundred years of film making behind it and makes the largest number of films in the world and this proves that Indians are good at storytelling. However, the education and skills for this sector has not been historically available.
Kulkarni said that by 2030 this sector needs to employ at least 20-25 lakh people directly. For this to be achievable education must start laying down skills for this sector at an early age in schools. Rural India provides a fertile ground for talent for this sector. The Centre of Excellence must create the right benchmarks keeping in mind the global standards in production and education both. Munjal Shroff said that India's credentials in the AVGC sector are clearly established today. What is needed now is to have skilling platforms for kids to seek out and explore their talent.
Upskilling of talent must also happen by way of continuous education and for this a knowledge bank needs to be created. Top professionals can make themselves available and education institutions can avail of this platform and invite such professionals to speak with the students, said Ketan Yadav, adding that the foundational training in the AVGC sector can be utilized for a career in many other sectors also. The sector is in need of a practical, dynamic and demand based training to create an industry ready workforce, said Yadav further. /BI/
