Current Situation of MTEC/AVT as of May 13

Dear former participants of MTEC & AVT,
Hello, this is Tom Maekawa, Chief Instructor of MTEC, JICE Okinawa Office in OIC.

How are you doing? I’m sorry that I’ve not written you for a long time.
But I certainly heard or read how hard you’ve been working in respective countries. I’ve been glad and proud of you.

It is needless to say that the dissemination of the Internet has shortened the distance between us, MTEC/AVT family in the world.
For an example, an incident which occurred somewhere in the world several minutes ago can travel all over the world in a moment via an e-mail, e blog, facebook, Picasa or Youtube. And the technology enables us to discuss it with someone in the world.

Now, let me make an important announcement about the continuity of MTEC/AVT.

Some of you may already know, but here are the situation of MTEC/AVT as of today.

-JICE Okinawa Office (the administrative office of MTEC/AVT) will be closed on December 31st, 2011.
-Most employees under JICE such as training coordinators, administrative staff, part of MTEC staff will be transferred to JICA/OIC.
-Due to the close of the office, JICE will not take part in bidding for MTEC training in and after this fiscal year (2011) -For the fiscal year 2011, the number of MTEC training courses will be decreased from 4 to 2, namely “Digital Video Production” and “IEC”
courses.
-JICA/OIC is planning to have bidding for “digital video course” and “IEC course” probably in July.
-NHK (Nippon Hoso Kyokai, meaning Japan Broadcasting Corporation, Japan’s national public broadcasting organization) has been showing its interest in operating DVP and IEC courses.
-NHK has asked JICE to work together as a JV, but JICE has shown reluctance about the idea.
-NHK may recruit some MTEC staff to implement the training courses.
-Some dealings may be starting soon.

Let me confirm that JICE made a decision NOT to operate any training courses in JICA OIC. And NHK may start headhunting of MTEC staff, since NHK is interested in implementation of DVP and IEC courses.

That is all for now. I feel sorry if I made you worried, but I promise that I will inform you our situation if I get to know anything further.

Bye for now,
Maekawa