An international training program for India’s museum professionals

In what can be termed as a first-of-its-kind move, which will allow India’s museum professionals to equip themselves with best practices and tools in the domain, an international training program has just been launched.

The five-month long Leadership Training Program is aimed at training both senior and mid-level museum officials from all across the country. The project is being executed with support and active involvement of the British Museum experts. An experts’ team is led by Neil MacGregor, the world-renowned institution's director.

The comprehensive program is part of the reform agenda of Union Ministry of Culture in the domain of archeology and conservation. Its idea is to put a core group of museum professionals in close touch and meaningful interaction with the very best in the world in order to help groom a solid base of professionals, who will then pass on the inputs by others in the field.

The Minister of Culture, Kumari Selja, feels that such broad-based knowledge dissemination exercises will give a much-desired thrust to the process of grooming trained professionals at India's top museums that have suffered thus far owing to lack of skilled staff apart from their failure to maintain fast-evolving international standards, hampering their management.

This has also adversely affected the performance and hence public image of museums in the country. There are also plans in the offing to understand their problems so as to customize the training program in keeping with their specific needs. The long-term goal is to give them freedom to let them take their own decisions at some stage.

The initial training session as part of this international training program for India’s museum professionals took place in the third week of January in New Delhi, involving up to 20 professionals drawn from a dozen or so museums. It's to be followed by a session in March in London and the concluding session in May in Mumbai.