Govt mulling framing guidelines for media schools

Taking serious note of mushrooming media schools in the country, government is mulling framing guidelines to protect the interest of students who have to eke out exorbitant fees for these unrecognised courses.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni on Friday said she had written to HRD Minister Kapil Sibal about the need to create a framework for these institutes whose numbers were going up due to media industry witnessing a high growth rate.

"This growth rate, this interest in the print media has led to a lot of so called training schools. Media shops as sometimes people are calling them," Soni said at a function organised to award the prestigious Seema Nazreth Award for Journalistic Excellence. Soni gave away the award to Indulekha Arvind of Business Standard.

She said there were complaints about high fees charged by media institutes for courses which were often not recognised.

"High prices, one lakh-two lakh rupees for a six month course, for a diploma and then people do come and complain that we paid two lakhs for a diploma after six weeks, but that diploma is not recognised," Soni said.

"Initially you might have landed a job as a TV journalist or with some newspaper or some other print media publication. But if you happen to leave that and look for something else that diploma may not be recognised," she said.

Soni said she had written to the HRD minister regarding the need to creating a framework for these institutes.

"I wrote to the HRD minister that we must do something about these mushrooming media institutes. There must be some ground rules that all of them must follow. So that the talent which admits itself in such institutes sometimes should not be disillusioned at the end of the day," Soni said.

Soni also deprecated the trend of paid news, saying that it weakened the argument for complete freedom for media.