Jagran sets up media school

, has set up a media and management institute in Noida.

The institute, offering a one-year diploma in print and broadcast journalism as well as advertising and public relations, will begin its session in August.

"We are offering two separate courses in Hindi and English print journalism," says Ajay Upadhyay, the institute head and former editor of Hindustan (HT's Hindi daily).

At last count, Delhi had some 50 media schools "" big and small "" with the English daily, The Pioneer, having launched its own print and TV journalism academy this year. Upadhyay claims that the group's foray into media school was necessitated by a shortage of trained manpower in the field.

"New news channels poach heavily from the existing ones and recruiting trainees from most of the current crop of institutes does not help. The quality of people you get is bad," says Upadhyay. He should know. For, as Aaj Tak's former executive producer, he saw people being pinched by Star News.

He says that the basic aim of the institute is to generate trained manpower for the media industry. "It is relevant as the growth rates in the media industry are very high," observes Upadhyay. He says the school is not affiliated to any university as they wanted to impart a certain kind of education.

"We have not sought an affiliation with a university as we find their media courses archaic," he says. At the Jagran Institute, the focus will be on live training. "Our 24-hour Hindi news channel is coming up soon. We can even offer on-the-job training to students of broadcast journalism," says Upadhyay.

Meanwhile, the institute will also have its own television studio, a radio studio, editing facilities and an online library. It also expects to absorb some people within the group. For the one-year course in any of the disciplines, the institute charges a fee of Rs 75,000.

Dainik Jagran enjoys a readership of 15. 7 million. The newspaper generated a revenue of Rs 240 crore in the last financial year.