 Ladies and gentlemen, we now move on without any further ado to our next panel for the evening. Discussing the theme, Suggestions for Improving Media Education in India. Charing this panel I'd like to welcome on stage Mr. Rohail Amin, Senior Editor, Exchange for Media Group. Joining him in conversation, Professor J.P. Pandey, Dean and Head, Department of Mass Communication, Assam University, Silshar. Professor J.P. Dube, Director, Delhi School of Journalism, Delhi University, Dr. Sonal Pandya, Professor and Head, Department of Communication, Journalism and Public Relations, Gujarat University, Professor Meenal Chatterjee, Professor and Regional Director, Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Sanchar Mark, Denkanal, Dr. S. Assistant Professor, Department of Media Sciences, Anna University, Chennai, and Dr. R. Shridhar, Media Expert and Community Radio Practitioner, Emeritus Professor, APJ, University of Sonal, India. I would like to welcome all the panelists on the stage please. I request all the audience members to please maintain silence while the discussion is on. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Good evening. We have a very eclectic panel here and first of all the setting is so good. It looks like a music event but this is a serious discussion here. And the topic of discussion is how can we improve the scope of academic journalism? What is the next step in that? The next leap that academic journalism needs to take to be more relevant than it is today. The next step is to make it in tune with the changing media landscape. So I would start with my panel and so I'll start from right here next to me. Yes, I'll come to you. I know you have to leave a little early. I'll come. My second question will be to you then we could share it. So ma'am, I just want to understand in your view what are the blind spots, the bigger issues that academic journalism is facing in today's media landscape and the environment that we operate in. What are the major issues on the academic side of journalism? Good evening to all. Since morning people are asking me that where are you coming from? I said I am from Gujarat, Ahmedabad where Narendra Modi and Amit Shastra did. Before I complete they are not able to listen even my name and my discipline as well. But I'm Sonal Pandya. I'm with the Department of Communication and Journalism, Gujarat University. And if I'm throwing light on his question that I'm having very big question regarding the relevance of general education as a whole. Why media education? The relevance level issues are prevailing in education in general as well because we are having a number of good colleges of B.Ed, Ahmed and lawyers. We are having a scarcity of the committed good lawyers, committed good teachers. So I think it is the very larger question not regarding the media education itself. And as far as the media education is concerned that is the complaint from the beginning whether we are able to cater the requirement of industry. I think we are sometimes overestimated and we have to be very clear about that because there are two aspects of learning. One is the skill development and attitude building. We are giving too much of importance to the skill learning rather than attitude building. And I firmly feel that the student thought that we are receiving in the mainstream universities they are coming from a heterogeneous background. They come from different backgrounds. After completing a 15-year process, I feel that we can teach them how to learn in life or we should be very practical in that sense. And if they have a proper attitude of learning. For example, I can quote you the very known symbol of a largely media award and which is accepted by the All India Advertising Association. That logo is designed by our student. So I never taught her how to draw the logo. But I taught her the gender justice and gender issues. I think three things that we have to think upon that we have to teach at the graduation or the post-graduation level. Basic of Indian economy, culture, society and political science. I think it is a very much laking. So we can teach the student how to learn. Don't be overestimate all the time. Don't feel guilty all the time that we are not able to get out of the industry. Thank you. Thank you ma'am. I'm sorry we are just running with a limited 30-minute slot and we have to complete all these thoughts. So sir coming to you next. If you have to throw light on the subject what would be your take on improving the media, academic side of the media debate? And what are the biggest challenges that you are facing that you see happening on that side? Thank you. Good evening everybody. The education at the moment has been designed on three parameters. One is related to vertically how many people are being given or specialized training to perform a high level of academic or professional job that is treated as a master degree program in most of the universities. The second level is how many students are being enrolled for doing many other jobs of journalism which is not very academically or professionally of sound nature but of other nature also. And that is mostly being offered at the undergraduate level. In some of the universities not here in India it is not very popular but in other universities outside India even the school curricula is accommodating media literacy and media education so that the people transiting from the below school to undergraduate courses and master degree courses are far better in terms of learning and production outcome. That difficulty unfortunately we have been carrying too far long and this was happening because the university was not part of this whole exercise. We started very late last year. We started thinking of doing a very organized journalism media instruction and we came out with a five year integrated program and that five integrated year program is accommodating two components. One is what is the specific requirement at a very larger level that is the undergraduate level and what will be the vertical requirement at the master degree level so that they can be used in disciplinary growth of the subject domain because we have been lacking on those fronts. At least I can assure you in another five, six years there will be a substantial enrichment of disciplinary growth at least from daily university. I don't know how many other universities are doing. One more additional input I would like to add upon is there was a talk about making syllabi uniform. Making syllabi uniform is very dangerous. There can be a common minimum guideline which is available to everybody that this should constitute media education but there should be complete autonomy to the respective universities so that they can plan according to the strength available in other countries. I totally agree with you. My next question is a lot of students think that they give preference to learning on the job. They want to learn on job. They want to go there and hands on and they say I have personally seen people talking about it that we learn more in the real world. If that is the case, if this is the thought process is there something lacking from the academic side that is making them think so can we bridge this gap? Can they not talk about learning hands on only and having a strong foundation, academic foundation as well? How do we see ensuring this as we go along? Good evening to everyone. Media education is facing tremendous changes in the last decade. Media industry also, regarding the media education the academic foundation is very important because skill is important but more than that academic foundation the basic understanding concepts, theories they are also very important because normally in the media protection nurses are taking a lot of students for their employment. Even just a tenth positive or plus two positive students they can take the camera, still camera, video camera they can cover anything, they can record anything but apart from that the knowledge, mass communication understanding, concept and theoretical understanding is very important to overcome. Thanks. I'll just go quickly to the next panelist. So if you have to talk about, for example there's another argument that media is an elitist, like English bias is there a lot of bias towards English, you know? That's an elitist approach towards even grooming the next phase of the next generation of journalists. Do you think we are paying enough attention at developing regional talent, you know? Because you see media houses, they employ stringers just based because their location is there only the merit, you know? Because they have the particular location they're based in. Do you think we are dividing this English plus regional plus stringer and there's something big issue that needs to be seen and addressed maybe? Very good evening to the dignitaries on the diets of the diets as well as the German of this panel. Thank you for your very brilliant and relevant questions. Being the particular teacher for the last 27 years because you are confining me to a particular dimension which are related to challenges of the journalism but certainly as you have asked though particular in India right now we see that the English journalism is dominating but I feel that the regional journalism has also more potential and days are not very far away that in due course of time I think that the regional journalism will certainly replace the English journalism for that we have to also bring the commission we have to take some certain steps and also make some such kind of curriculum such as are considering the need best requirement of the students. Suppose I think that if some institution is situated in Hindi hard belt so there we have to think of regarding the particular that language journalism or maybe if some institution is in the south or Kerala or some there we have to also think of on that particular point. So I feel and with one example I can tell I'm sorry I'm running short of time we'll come back to it again. I just let me leave this one question. Yes so we just had this conversation inside also that when students see today's media when they see news channels when they see the screaming happening and a bit of entertainment happening how do you react what do you tell them you know when you teach them an idealistic view about giving them a certain you know basis in journalism certain grounding in journalism but they are seeing something very ironic how do you how do you yes yes yes yes how would you kind of I mean to say my point is that there is a difference between what they are taught and what they see how do you reconcile the two that's my point to answer that I'm going to take you a different direction you have much rooming of media schools one is run by Delhi University, Bombay University etc another is run by the industry the industry doesn't teach any ethics only practical training and give them some take the money take their work and give them a certificate and they will be happy that I got a certificate so and so big big banner whereas in the government universities fees are low but you don't get an exposure to industry and I'll come to a point when Mr. K.G. Shuresh announced that the government has issued a letter of intent for a mission with Delhi up we need to have standards we need to have an all India council for media education like AACTE you may say there will be corruption and recognition but there will be standards let this IIMC which becomes the university also start with instilling standards and recognitions of media schools so that there is a particular he said some common minimum program is needed there is a certain amount of practicality certain amount of theories let that be standards perfect perfect perfect sir so your suggestions my next question what are your suggestions for improving the academic side of I guess all big problems can have simple short solutions if both the parties are actually keen to find solutions I have just 7 points I'll be as brief as possible point number one praxis plus theory plus attitudinal training ladies and gentlemen I can assure you that we can weave all this in our syllabi second point keeping pace with evolving skill requirements all said and done we need to orient our students with emerging technology that's the second point keeping pace with evolving skill requirements third point is multimodal learning some learning is textual some should be graphical some needs to be visual while some need to be experimental so we have to have multimodal training fourth point we must utilize the cutting edge technology fifth point enhanced learners engagement now how do you ensure that it will squarely depend on the media educators and the system but at the end of the day we need to ensure enhanced learners engagement point number six online social networking and community based learning that we probably need to know how do you go about it and last but not the least I entirely agree with him that a benchmarking body are regulating call it regulating call it benchmarking we need a body thank you very much Mr. Dubey I want you to answer one of the questions that I asked that gentleman before which was about that it is division between English regional a stringer do you see there is actually an issue or we are just making an issue out of it definitely there is an issue there are issues and perhaps that was the at the core of our mind when we were designing this five year integrated program in journalism at Delhi University we decided to cater to the elitist class definitely because there was a systematic orientation of students towards this journalism journalism particularly in English so we are not willing to leave that cater outside this ambit so we decided to rope in them first and then go for the Hindi journalist also so equal number of seats were given to the Hindi students also we went further also we tried to accommodate regional languages also each student whether he is doing in English journalism he or she has to take at least one Indian language for all five years my point is the bias ahead of after this do you see them getting equal opportunity after this is possible only when they are not trained in that direction once they are trained in that direction that bias will not be there because they will be practicing it because if somebody is trained in Tamil language as well as and in the journalism he or she will be definitely working out in Tamil literature he will be seeking Tamil history he will be doing Tamil film also that is the idea which has led us to and fortunately you will be surprised to know that very few institutions can claim that for 100 seats there were 12,000 applicants 9,600 students appeared for the interest rates that is the idea which is walking on the ground Ms. Pandya you want to add to it you want to say something what do you mean by what do you mean by elitist because I am very against this word because speaking in English is not a elitist and the biggest problem Gandhi said after independence that the hard-heartedness of intelligent people I think literate people's backwardness is a more big challenge in this country now and I think media education is also facing that literate backward people are existing they feel that we are so called educated they don't know anything so I think this session is for the suggestion I must suggest that one month compulsory internship in rural area is must for all the media very good I think we should all chair for this yes because they are rootless people they don't know they are talking about the cow slaughter they don't even know how many cows and how many goats are there the name of elitist and English medium school which is called elitism I think we have to rethink about that they are foreigners in their own country and such rootless people have done a lot of damage to education system and they are doing media education I want to support that I work in a field which nobody majority of journalists don't work I work in community radio we have 300 radio stations in the country today not a single person is trained in community media either I have advertisement agency person or I am from a print media or from television radio we don't have that and we have to talk in regional language I am sorry you want to make a point just two points point number one that we have now more opportunities in regional language media that's number one and number two no I guess English at the end of the day now is just a language so I don't see any elitist kind of a bias if we go for English but now yes we need to open up more opportunities for regional language journalism I guess IIMC is taking a good step in opening up several language journalism courses thank you last point and we have to wrap this panel unfortunately yes actually the media education our students are studying in the college only it should be introduced in the school itself so the media literacy is very important so they can access and analyze very good information they can get relevant information relevant to media otherwise they will waste their timing their energy lot of the things they are misunderstanding lot of the things that's why the fact news misinformation and disinformation are happening so the media literacy is very important for that purpose we have to introduce at the school level another one thing the standardization process we have to start the standardization process process of media industry thank you so much I've just heard that bell also ringing so thank you all of you for this wonderful session thanks for being here thank you we'll plan more of course thank you delegates thank you Rohail I'll request all of you to stay on stage I'd like to call upon Mr. Munish Atre national sales head ABP news network to kindly join us on stage and felicitate all of our speakers with a token of our appreciation Mr. Munish Atre