§ Lord Lairdasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they are currently promoting training for the development of minority language based television, radio and film programmes; if so, how the training scheme was made available; what languages are benefiting; and to what extent. [HL1735]
§ The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Blackstone)The Radio Authority is currently supporting a variety of training through the Access Radio pilot project. The information is shown in the table:
131WA
Radio Station Language(s) benefiting Training Desi Radio Punjabi Training courses involve up to ten trainees at a time. Radio Faza Urdu and Punjabi with some Hindi, Bengali, Mirpuri, Gujarati and Arabic languages. Basic training on use of equipment etc. as well as some structured training. South Radio (pilot has not yet commenced) Bangladeshi, Syletti, Hebrew, Yiddish, Kurdish and Turkish The group hopes to provide training for programme contributors. Skillset, the Sector Skills Council for the audiovisual industries for the UK, provides training for television and film. Skillset is jointly funded by the DFES and industry.
It is in the process of establishing a Skillset Cymru which will directly support courses in Wales in both English and the Welsh language.
In Scotland, education and training in Gaelic in the audio-visual sector is provided at tertiary level at Sabhal Mor Ostaig on Skye where vocationally oriented HNC and HND courses are offered.