ITV Studios head of production and talent Jacqui Doyle has always been interested in how to ensure those working in media have the skills they need.
“I am passionate about skills development of the future industry workforce – the industry is growing and is vital that we ensure training and skills development is relevant both to industry and to students.”
Helping ScreenSkills Select particularly appealed: “We have a unique opportunity to work together for the mutual benefit of industry, training colleges and new recruits - pooling our expertise so that courses offer best experience for students and supply industry with highly trained ‘work-ready’ new recruits. I also think it is only in working together in this space that we will make the required level of progress in terms of tackling diversity.”
The first half of Jacqui’s career was spent as a BBC production manager working across arts, science, history and popular factual and also for a short time for BBC Training early in her career. She moved to ITV as a production executive for its factual north department and then became head of production for non-scripted.
In her current role, she oversees the operations of the in-house talent team and also has direct responsibility for hiring and scheduling the pool of production secretaries and coordinators, as well as leading on production management training and representing production on ITV HR and technology projects. She is well placed to understand the requirements for new talent and their training needs.
Jacqui has just joined the ScreenSkills evaluation team and has been evaluating her first course – MA Directing and Producing Television Entertainment course at the National Film & Television School. She says: “Just through this one initial experience I have found it hugely valuable to gain insight into how skills for our industry are taught. Over time I would hope to gain much more extensive knowledge of courses and training available and where the centres of excellence lie – as well as…playing my part in assisting colleges in achieving their goals.”
She thinks ScreenSkills Select’s stamp of approval is helpful for students as they “navigate the range of courses on offer and make informed decisions about what will help them most in their career ambitions” and ensure they “can be confident the courses they are embarking on - and paying for - have been adequately quality controlled by people with up to date/relevant/current knowledge.”
Having one body – ScreenSkills Select - to make sure TV and film courses in further and higher education have high standards is something she approves of. “Most other industries have structures in place to monitor training and standards. It’s important that the media industry also has a consistent approach to quality control.”
The way ScreenSkills Select is structured means it also gives the industry insight into the training being offered as well as access to pools of highly-trained work-ready students. She says: “Ultimately, we have a win-win-win culture of continuous improvement benefiting students/industry and education alike.”