Media companies join hands with MDA to groom media leaders

Revised Media Education Scheme offers full scholarship and company matching for successful​​ applicants​​​​​​

Background of Media​ Education Scheme

• The Media Education Scheme (MES​) is a scholarship scheme la​unched by the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA) in 2003 to build and nurture manpower capabilities and talent in the media industry.​​​​

• Application for this year's scholarship is open from 6 January to 15 March 2012. Interested applicants (Singapore citizen or Permanent Resident) can apply online at http://app.cischolarship.sg/.

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​ Revised scholarship s​​cheme

• With the streamlining of MDA funding schemes in Sept 2011 to better meet the needs of the media industry, MDA has also revised its scholarship scheme under Talent Assistance​¹​ to further develop media professionals and industry leaders, while ensuring that talent are matched to media companies in the best possible way.

• The previous scholarship scheme has enlarged the overall pool of local media talent by injecting a diverse range of media talent into the industry. As our local media industry evolves and matures, media companies now look for specific skill sets when hiring talent.

• Hence MDA incorporated company matching in our revised scholarship scheme. This allows us to achieve the twin goal of ensuring job placement for our scholarship recipients, while at the same time meeting industry’s need and demand for talent with specific skill sets.

• The revised scholarship scheme will offer, for both local and overseas studies:

• Job placement and internship and/ or training opportunities with sponsoring company

• Full scholarship that covers the full tuition and other compulsory university fees

• Annual allowance to defray living expenses

• The increase in value of the award is around 130% more for local studies. For studies overseas, the increase in value of the award could be from 50% to 180% more.

• Scholarship recipients will be required to serve a bond with their sponsoring companies for a period of three to five years, depending on the value of the scholarship.

• Please see Annex A for the overview of changes

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​ New component in MES: Company Matching

• With the revision, the MES scholarship is now co-sponsored by MDA and established media companies (see Annex B for the profiles of sponsoring companies). MDA is approaching more partners to come on board and welcomes media companies which are interested to contact MDA for discussion.

• By partnering with local media companies to identify the skill sets and knowledge they require, MDA ensures that our scholarship recipients take up relevant media-related degree programmes that meet the needs of our industry. Recipients are also guaranteed a job placement with their sponsoring company, with training and internship opportunities while they are studying to gain on the job experience.

• Recipients can choose their area of studies from a broad spectrum of courses from publishing, broadcast, animation, music business, games business to communications and journalism courses (see Annex B​ for the full list of fields of study that will be supported).

• In particular, there is a strong demand for skill sets in interactive digital media, with companies such as Singapore Press Holdings, Singtel and Starhub looking for people who are interested to pursue a career track in interactive digital media across different media sectors. Courses include new media engineers, interactive media, e-publishing, digital content management, digital advertising, new media studies and user experience design.

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​¹Talent Assistance is one of the five schemes under the new MDA grant schemes. Specifically, Talent Assistance helps media professionals, whether employees or freelancers, to upgrade, upskill and secure work attachment opportunities. This is in the form of training programmes, work attachments and scholarships. For more information, please refer to www.mda.gov.sg/IndustryDevelopment/GrantAndSchemes/Pages/Overview.aspx

​ About Media De​​​velo​​​pment Authority of Singapore (MDA)
​The Media Development Authority of Singapore (www.mda.gov.sg) promotes the growth of globally competitive film, television, radio, publishing, music, ga​mes, animation and interactive digital media industries. It also regulates the media sector to safeguard the interests of consumers, and promotes a connected society.