Karthik Kumar

Kamal Haasan, the incumbent chairman of the Media and Entertainment Skills Council (MESC), has formally announced a massive skill certification program for employees in the film industry at the eighth edition of Global Skills Summit held in New Delhi last week.

Addressing the gathering which was also attended by Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of State, Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Kamal Haasan called for all unions across the country to participate in a three-day workshop which will be organised by FICCI, in association with the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, and National Skill Development Corporation, sometime in November.

“We have more than 35 unique film union consortiums with informal/unstructured skilling and apprentice models.The Media and Entertainment Skills council (MESC) is mandated to train 11.24 lakhs skilled workforce by 2022. MESC has created world class qualification packs for 74 job roles spanning across various sub sectors of media and entertainment along with the consortium partner from the industry. About 10,000 workers will take part in the three-day workshop for Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL),”MESC had announced.

As per our discussion with Padmashri Kamal Haasan, we have unanimously decided that all the members of AIFEC ( All India Film Employees Confederation) and various unions affiliated to our institution will participate in the three-day workshop conducted by the central government. We strongly believe that our workers will get the much-needed recognition for their respective talents from the certificate attested by the government. AIFEC members will not participate in any film shooting on those three days and we request producers to suspend the work on respective dates to facilitate learning
– G. Shiva (President of AIFEC)

The entire industry will shut down for three days to make sure workers and technicians across the film chain enrol for the program. This inter-industry collaboration will continue on a long term basis and regular workshops to achieve a sizeable number of skilled workforce will be organised in the coming months in a phased manner.

“The logistics of the program are not finalised yet. We have tied up with training centers in every state and have identified diverse job profiles in various streams of the media and entertainment industry. An official announcement regarding the date and venue for the program will be made next month,” says a source from MESC.

(Karthik Kumar is an independent film critic and journalist. He actively follows and writes on popular South Indian cinema and covers independent films too.)

http://www.thequint.com/entertainment/2015/09/15/south-film-industry-to-shut-down-for-kamal-haasans-skill-workshop