The Media and Entertainment sector is one of the largest employers of both unskilled and skilled youth in formal and informal employment. In 2012, the Government of India, through NSDC, established the Media and Entertainment Sector Skill Council.
Key points:
- The Indian Media and Entertainment industry was projected to increase at a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 13.5% from 2019 to 2024 and is estimated to reach 45 billion US dollars.
- Within the Media & Entertainment sector – Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comic sector is growing at a rate of ~29%.
- As of 2020, India registered ~803 million online video viewers; India's OTT video services market is likely to post a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 29.52% to reach 5 billion US Dollars by 2026.
These are pre-pandemic estimations and data, and we all have witnessed and contributed equally to the growth of the online media industry during the lockdown.
The number of social media influencers posting videos on anything and everything, from cooking to life lessons to pet videos to someone posting close to 200 videos of just staring at the Camera for 4 hours, has been increasing daily.
The Tik-tokers and the Instagram Reel makers are not just based in the media capitals of the world, but many of them or rather most of them, are from remote rural locations or tier-2 and tier-3 cities, than those from media hubs such as Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, etc.
The same goes for professional online gamers, content creators and animation experts.
So, with these market growth estimations and factual data for Skill Development, every data of market growth translates into Demand for Skill, Entrepreneurship and Employment opportunities for our youth. And that’s exactly what we at the National Skill Development Corporation focus on and simultaneously grapple with.
Education and Skill Development for the Media and Entertainment Sector, especially from the point of Public Policy and Govt. interventions
To cater to the increasing demand for skilled human resources across sectors and to provide better employability skills to the youth, the Government of India launched a dedicated Skill India Mission and established a specific Ministry, the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, in 2014. Since then, the National Skill Development Corporation, NSDC has been working under the aegis of the Ministry along with the Training partners and 36 Sector Skill Councils with the sole intention of making India the Skill Capital of the World – A vision of our Honourable Prime Minister and that of the Skill India Mission.
The Media and Entertainment sector is one of the largest employers of both unskilled and skilled youth in formal and informal employment. In 2012, the Government of India, through NSDC, established the Media and Entertainment Sector Skill Council.
The MESC is an industry-led body formed to assess the skill demand, create training content according to industry requirements, and ensure the industry's acceptability at national and global levels.
MESC has been recognized and authorized by the Government of India to create training content and award certificates according to the National Skill Qualification Framework.
In addition to the above, the Govt. of India also revamped the education policy and thus enacted the National Education Policy in June 2020. This new Education policy focuses highly on ensuring the children's skill development along with the pedagogy of science, math and literature right from the primary school level. The Indian education system, with the legacy of British colonialism, has a system that was designed to create clerks and instruct following professionals. The National Education Policy is revolutionary in all manners. The new policy will strive towards removing the incorrectly perceived hierarchy of education over skills/vocational education and enable them to be equally valued in the process of Human Development. This behavioural change in society will require extensive resource deployment and time.
Opportunities and challenges of skill development and education in the Media and Entertainment sector–
Challenges
- The negative image of the sector:
The sector's negative image is largely misplaced in the film and Television industry, mostly among the larger population of the working class, both educated and semi- or illiterate families. The print, animation, and gaming sectors are not so quickly associated with the Media Sector by the common man.
The Media industry is not the first choice of education or career path selected by most parents for their kids,
- Absence of Information:
Information on kinds of job opportunities, types of work, etc., within the M&E Sector, even an educated graduate from the best of the universities or her/his faculty does not know what career growth options are available in this sector. In Indian society, the career path of most children is decided not by the child or the youth but more so by influencers such as parents, some random distant relative who is successful, teachers, etc.
When these influencers have a negative perception towards the sector and do not have any exposure or information on the employment and growth opportunities in the sector, how do we assume that they will push their kids to join this sector?
Need to strategize on how to influence these career influencers using our social media influencers!!
Next, Counselling is not just for students but also for parents, teachers, college faculty, etc. Career Counselling and mass disseminating information can help break people's myths and misconceptions.
- The dearth of Infrastructure – Educational and Skill Development Infrastructure of Global Standards
Low investment and presence in infrastructure development means that aspiring youth entering the industry do not have the requisite avenues to gain knowledge or skills.
NSDC is working closely with schools and colleges nationwide to provide training opportunities to students and youth, and we see an increasing demand for courses from the Media sector. We are also working with large media conglomerates to establish a Centre of Excellence nationwide, and MESC is leading this initiative through its institutional partners. We are now present in 1700+ schools and colleges with 64 qualification packs, providing training opportunities to the youth.
Opportunities / Strengths
- Very High Aspiration Value among Youth
Across the social strata, professional expertise and geography, every youngster today wants to be part of this sector.
It cuts across every aspect of the economy with opportunities for every professional field – IT /Engineers /Liberal Arts / Management / Researchers / Artists/ skilled / semi-skilled, etc., and to a very good extent, gender agnostic too. The female labour force that participates in this sector is not restricted by the perceptions and structure of the sectors such as manufacturing and engineering; rather, this is one of the few sectors that promotes and has demand for all genders.
High Pace of Sectoral Growth
One of the fastest growing sectors and most probably now the highest employment generator – direct and indirect jobs and entrepreneurs both through Social Media, Traditional Media of print & TV/Radio, Associated Manufacturing & Technology Sector, etc., including the value of a sector can be assessed by the role it plays in promotion or growth of other sectors. E.g. The mobile phone market is not expanding as much due to the improved technology of call connectivity as much as by supplying the consumer's demand for better quality pictures and high-speed internet connectivity for the consumer’s social media presence. For a new phone launch, they primarily focus on the quality of the Camera rather than the phone’s ability to function perfectly in low mobile network regions.
As academicians, professionals and policy experts in the Media and Education sector, we all have a responsibility towards our youth: a responsibility to provide them with the best possible curriculum, avenues of skill training, information on career prospects and opportunities to contribute to the economy.
Let us all strive to make Azadi ka Amrut truly the potion of perpetual growth and independence for our nation's youth.