University System & Media Teaching in India

More than 50 % of media programs in the country are managed by non-media departments, mostly Hindi, English, Sociology etc. Students passing out from these departments are more into dishing out editorials on anything or everything without basic understanding of media platforms or training in the associated skills. They strive to clear NET and become college/university teachers without the much needed grounding in the industry. It is akin to becoming a Swimming Teacher without appropriate training in swimming. In fact more than 80 percent of them make no distinction among Media, Mass Communication and Journalism. Profession, Career and Industry are interchangeably used, thus adding to the confusion. For them MASS COMM and JOURNALISM are synonimous. No wonder, the degrees are disproportionately journalism-centric and nomenclature is mostly FUNNY. Literature departments tend to turn back the wheel of history by devoting more time to the Mission aspects of Media programs than the Professional ones without realizing the fact that every profession has certain ethical moorings and mission beyond a point carries with it avoidable biases and promotes professional ignorance and illiteracy. Many literature departments have gone a step further. To prove their contemporary relevance they beget mass Communication courses/ programs and later fail to keep pace with the Professional requirements of the courses/programs and start behaving like Police Inspector who refuses to allow his daughter to go for IPS because he will have to SALUTE her in case she gets the same cadre. DU, JNU media courses are living examples of what is argued here. GGSIPU Mass Comm School is lucky in that it escaped a similar fate though it had more complex birthing circumstances: from Management to Chemistry to Humanities...OMG it was no less than a miracle. Good Luck University School of Mass Communication! You had a saving grace, thanks to IPU's professional focus, NOT the University System per se that has repeatedly proved its incapacity to deal with this Inter-disciplinary Domain as most of the universities are brought up in a Catholically Rigid Disciplinary environment that has led to cubiclization of knowledge and practice of CASTE SYSTEM among the disciplines.