Leading Indian animation player, the Thiruvananthpuram based Toonz Animation India has announced its plans to open 10 state of the art animation schools in the country.

The company has already tasted success in achieving high quality training standards in its earlier initiatives in education with Toonz Webel Academy Kolkata where it is partners with WEBEL. The 10 new schools will be an expansion of its other education venture , the Toonz Animation Academy which the studio has been running in its home turf Thiruvananthapuram, for the past couple of years, again with good results.

"The Toonz Academy has been in operation for a couple of years now, and several batches of students have successfully passed out of it. The Academy is a niche school and essentially meets our in-house requirements for talented artists, a reason why we have given it a low profile till now. The new expansion plan will change this, as we take this success story in animation education to different parts of India" Toonz Animation India CEO P Jayakumar told Animation Xpress.com

On being asked as to what was the major motivation behind the new initiative, Jayakumar quipped, "Shortage of industry trained talent, especially at a time when we were ramping up our production infrastructure, was one reason. The other reason was our commitment as India's leading animation studio to create a centre of excellence in animation and nurture the next generation of animation professionals in the country"

"Our vision is to select, develop and train Indian students to successfully compete for professional artistic positions in the global animation marketplace, through an internationally designed and approved program" he added.

The locations for these academies are in the process of being finalized and according to Jayakumar, the level of awareness about animation, availability of talent and infrastructure support will play a key role in selecting the locations.

According to Jayakumar, "The academies will be provided with the best in infrastructure, including state-of-the-art equipment, software, library facilities and supported by a internationally designed curriculum and guest visits by globally renowned animation instructors."

The first of these academies will be opened towards the end of the year.