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CBSE launches vocational courses in mass media
Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 19
Ace producer-director Subhash Ghai today joined hands with the government to hone children’s skills in film-making.

In a marked shift in the school education policy, CBSE chairman Vineet Joshi today signed an MoUwith two top business houses in the country - Rolta India, the pioneer in offering geospatial technologies to solve routine and complex problems, and Whistling Woods International, the Subhash Ghai-steered academy that came up 15 years ago in Mumbai - to train people in film-making. Now, in these streams mass media studies and media production and geospatial technologies will be offered as vocational courses at senior secondary level (classes XI and XII) in any CBSE school that volunteers.

By far, 19 CBSE schools from Delhi, Pune, Mumbai and Kolkata have agreed to teach geospatial technologies from the current session while 14 schools will offer mass media course which will familiarise students with the language of films, TV, print, radio and Internet.

While students can opt for geospatial technologies from the listed vocational subjects in classes XI and XII, mass media course will be one of the four elective subjects and also an additional elective in combination with any academic elective already available.

Though the present demand for the courses is weak, the HRD Ministry believes it will grow by the next session. “We had introduced the finance market management course two years ago in about 30 schools. It is now being offered by 80. Similarly, these new courses will also grow,” Joint Secretary (Elementary Education) SC Khuntia said.