Ad Policies & Regulations

IOAA initiates steps to develop OOH Qualification Packs, Occupation Standards

IOAA, as part of the Media & Entertainment Skill Centre (MESC), has initiated the steps to develop detailed Qualification Packs and Occupation Standards for each job involved in the OOH media business.

Published

April 12, 2017

Rajiv Raghunath

The Indian Outdoor Advertising Association (IOAA), as part of the Media & Entertainment Skill Centre (MESC), has initiated the steps to develop detailed Qualification Packs and Occupation Standards for each job involved in the OOH media business. The MESC which was established with national industry chamber FICCI as the coordinating body, is promoting skill development across the media and entertainment spectrum, under the auspices of the Union Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.

Pertinent to note that Government of India had set the target to skill 40.2 crore in India by the year 2022 under the Skill India Mission, which is spearheaded by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship. The IOAA initiative to develop the Qualification Packs and Occupation Standards for the OOH industry will be particularly critical to a host of support functions like fabrication, mounting, civil works, amongst others, that currently fall in the unorganised sector. However, the standards would be developed for a whole gamut of functions involved in the OOH business that involves people at different skill levels, including design, maintenance, ad scheduling, etc.

The IOAA has called for suggestions and observations from the OOH industry leaders on the work-in-progress Qualification Packs and Occupation Standards. Once the standards are laid down and shared with the MESC, the training and retraining modules will be developed, and institutes will be identified where the modules shall be run periodically.

Indrajit Sen, senior consultant with IOAA who is playing an instrumental part in the drafting of the Qualification Packs and Occupation Standards told Media4Growth that the initiative will call for a multi-stakeholder approach, more so as some of the functions are today outsourced by the main businesses.

The skill development initiatives will be targeted at (i) people who are entering the industry, (ii) those who are already employed in the industry but need to be re-trained as per the emerging needs of OOH business, and (iii) trainers who need to re-trained.
Sen observed that the OOH businesses themselves would have to take the leadership in encouraging their people to get re-trained, as also encourage their own people to conduct industry training programmes.