University Department of Extension Education, S.N.D.T. Women’s University, Juhu Campus, Santa Cruz (West), Mumbai- 400 049. Email: mirakdesai@rediffmail.com
(This paper was originally presented at 16th AMIC conference “Media, education and development: Quest for new paradigms” and First World Journalism Education Congress held from 25 to 28th June 2007 at Singapore.)
This paper is based on the experiences of the author’s professional engagement with mainstream print (newspaper), television (researcher, scriptwriter and anchor), Internet (content provider), and alternate media (newsletter) environments besides academics. Being media educator for over a decade and having graduated as a media student two decades ago, this paper expands ‘micro’ to ‘macro’ and selfsituated subjective to objective analysis of communication/media education in India. It elaborates on the status of media education policies, practices and issues in the Indian context. Issues related to curriculum, pedagogy, learner and teacher profiles, evaluation and economics of running a media course have been discussed. The paper concludes that Indian media sector do not recognize and consider traditional media education processes in the country seriously, in process many media agencies have started formal educational institutions of their own. There are no linkages between the State’s mandates for media education in the country, private initiatives by media agencies, requirements of civil societies and expectations of the various stakeholders from the process of media education. The vehicle of media education seems to be halted with punctured wheels while road to go is a long one.
Television, Internet, communication, media, education, pedagogy, stakeholders
