I recently received an email from someone (who I have deliberately not named for the sake of privacy) who is very concerned about the state of Animation Education in India. He raises a pertinent but rarely discussed subject – the plight of Animation ‘Educators’ (more commonly known as ‘trainers’ here) in India.
I reproduce below his email verbatim. After this, you may deduce for yourself why our students are not really learning anything from the “Animation Institutes” that promise them the Sun and the Moon (or should I say – Disney and Pixar) in exchange for obscenely high fees.
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Greetings…This is a sincere request you to highlight the issues pertaining to the Animation Educators or trainers in so called Animation academies spread all over India in a franchisee model based education setup.
The real truth is very shocking always. The faculties are just picked up from the better students after a 6 month to 1 yr non formal study of technical education minus the aesthetic grounding needed for all these franchisees. They are given a maximum of 4-6 weeks training at the head offices of the respective brand they are going to join. After that they are even sent to far across sometimes to the near by countries for imparting education.
These faculties are given a remuneration of 30000/- per upto 6-7 or 8 Lakh per anum depending the seniority and experience and the brand for which he works with. But They are never given a proper training and exposure and production experience to become a true animation trainer and they are some times given a work load 6-7 batches per day with 2 hrs per each batch.They are always on their own and always on their toes because technology is ever changing and they have to adapt or perish .
Their life is really hell considering the kind of money the Franchisees make per month per unit franchisee/ with the 20 % royalty fee per student admitted to.
This is why probably most of the student and people belong to animation fraternity are under nourished because the training provider <faculties> are always treated inhumanly by the owner of the franchisee.
This has never been raised anyone despite of the fact that we have bodies like ASIFA,CGT,TASI and ABAI and a host of other affiliated communities.
I hope you try to raise the issues in your uniquely positioned website and the soon to be launched e-magazine and create a community for the betterment of these kind of non-organized professionals and boost the Animation Industry in India.
Sorry for this long write up…
Regards,
J.
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Thank you, J, for this heartfelt email. Trust me, I have raised this issue time and again through my blog and at forums. My intention behind posting your letter here is to bring it to the notice of someone somewhere who is a position of power to take action on the problem.
Definitely Agree to this. I have been through that kind of pain over some years but now i am free, on my own, learning and improving like never before.
Plz do add a Link or a button to share this article on facebook/twitter, thanks.
Yes J you are absolutely true. All institutes running under franchise mode are fake and they only have intention of making money. I know a institute which enrolled 500 students luring them job.It operated from 800sq.ft premises! smaller than 2BHK flat
1)First of all government should ban education “business” running on franchise mode. Anyone doing it must be severely penalized.
2)Animation education should be made just like architecture education. Since both are creative subjects number of animation colleges should be equal to number of architecture colleges.
3)Only respected colleges affiliated to reputed universities should be allowed to conduct diploma/ degree courses. Classes must be held full day(not 2 hours per day)
4)All institutes must fall under a central governing council just like AICTE for engineering. Strict guidelines must be imposed by the council to institutes regrading faculty qualifications, infrastructure, library, computer lab, drawing hall etc. In case of any discrepancy institutes must be banned from making admissions.
4)National level aptitude test must be conducted with ranking system and only those students who pass the exam should be allowed to take the course.
Animation industry in India is already struggling and if something is not done immediately it will collapse totally.
The Indian Animation Education is definitely the biggest flaw in our country not being able to create a talent pool that can produce content which can feed the market with a few blockbusters paving the path for future animators. Unfortunately the awareness that the general public have is quite limited. Do parents really do their research about this field and schools they want their kids to go to? Do the kids ask the right kind of questions when they go for enrollments? Are most fine art students aware that their traditional art training background can help them in this field? They can be good designers and develop artwork for original content. Most students pursuing animation do not believe that Fundamental/Traditional art skills are a must for Computer animation and most institutes do not provide or inadequately provide such classes just for name sake. Most do not want to invest more than 2 years into this education thus focusing only on Technology and leaving the essential part of ART out.I have tested both waters, finishing my primary animation education from Workstation in Mumbai which was a complete waste of time then moved to Academy of Art University in San Francisco. There i was blessed to receive training from some of the industries best known professionals like Jeremy Birn, Lighting T.D from Pixar and many more from ILM, RnH etc. People who have worked on real features giving you direct inputs from the current industry happening in art and tech. Are our “Art Colleges and Universities” willing to upgrade their curriculum to meet the current industry standards and properly incorporate this contemporary art form?
Speaking of AICTE, they need to educate themselves first on what this industry is all about. They need good consultants and then prepare a special set of rules and regulation for a field that is contemporary and a real good mix of Art and Technology. Though i would really want them to set this straight but for now i personally would not want my Institution to be given orders by them.
Why cant animation be considered as a Vocational training course and have students get their BFA degrees from the Art College biggies in India. Why does only Applied art have to fall under this category? I have raised these few points with my Friends at Rhythm and Hues who represent this Indian Animation Industry to consider it at the NASCOM meets for discussions. Hope this time around we can be heard. I really admire the way Vaibhab Kumersh is heading his studio and trying to make a difference.
For the current efforts to increase the quality of Animation in Education i would consider my less heard of Institution “Animation and Art School Goa” to make it uneasy for the franchise based models to up their standard of education and set some direction. Here is some student work that would technically kick the “Proverbial A***”
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Animation-and-Art-School-Goa/144768688904569
One important question, Do we as Indian Animation Professional realize that if we do not start creating our content and with the out sourcing jobs dropping with the dip in the economy and market off shores most of us will suffer. Don’t we have Japan as an example to look upto? Who is training people to create content and understand the business? Make a list of this and post it. This will benefit people more.