Region's Premier Vocational Training Academy To Up-Skill And Re-Skill Arab Media And Entertainment Industry Professionals

2008-12-18 12:49:25 - twofour54 tadreeb, the region's premier vocational training academy, has started enrolment for its first courses in January 2009 aimed at up-skilling and re-skilling professionals employed in the media and entertainment industry throughout the Arab world.

twofour54 tadreeb is a key pillar of twofour54 Abu Dhabi, launched recently to establish a regional centre of excellence for Arabic content creation. It is an exciting partnership with leading global media players to offer world-class vocational courses led by highly experienced, working media professionals at a state-of-the-art academy in Abu Dhabi.

Once fully operational, twofour54 tadreeb will offer more than 200 training courses across all media platforms including TV, broadcast technology, journalism, digital media, radio and the media as a business. The first courses to be offered include an introduction to HD, news and sports print and video journalism; broadcast and production; writing for radio; and children's TV production.

'Developing a talent pool of Arab media professionals is a vital component of twofour54 and our aim to have Arabs create media content for the region, in the region,' commented Tony Orsten, Chief Executive Officer, twofour54.

'twofour54 tadreeb will initially provide existing media and entertainment professionals with opportunities to develop skills across a comprehensive range of media and content industry disciplines. Our long term goals include targeting young Arabs and graduates considering a career in the media industry.'

The courses being offered at twofour54 tadreeb will be run initially in partnership with three of the world's leading media training organisations - the BBC, Thomson Reuters Foundation and the Thomson Foundation.

The BBC's partnership with twofour54 is the first partnership of its type in the world. Last year BBC Training & Development trained over 63,000 delegates and ran over 70,000 training days. The BBC's input into twofour54 tadreeb will be to deliver a market leading and fully comprehensive suite of courses in broadcasting.

The Thomson Foundation, which was founded in 1962, is one of the world's leading media development organisations. It has worked across the media industry to build the capacity and develop communications skills for thousands of media professionals and will be a key strength of what they will offer at twofour54 tadreeb leveraging a wealth of expertise and knowledge.

Thomson Reuters for more than 150 years has been a byword for speed, accuracy and impartiality. These highly-valued qualities are in demand as media and journalism develop in the region. Since 1982 the Thomson Reuters Foundation has been offering training and twofour54 tadreeb course participants will join more than 4,500 journalists around the world that have taken part in vocational training workshops.

The twofour54 tadreeb training academy will be housed in 2080m², state-of-the-art training facilities. These facilities, which are nearing completion, will provide students with an exceptional learning experience as well as a solid professional foundation.

'What makes our training courses stand out is that they are outcome-driven, practically and industry focused training programmes covering a range of media and entertainment content', added Orsten. 'All courses are practical and short-term training solutions, teaching the most up to date techniques. Our courses will empower participants to implement their new skills immediately.'