I know from experience how seriously we take training at the BBC. I was lucky enough to start here 20 years ago as a news trainee. At the time, that meant TWO years learning the ropes - from crafting that tight, crisp intro that keeps the listener listening, to wielding a razor blade lovingly over a few miles of audio tape. And, in the middle of all that, learning how not to break the law while practising the noble art of journalism.
During my trainee years, I was given the chance to report on the 1984 miners' strike in Nottingham, and to put together a documentary on a lifeboat crew in Dorset. I also learnt how to dent the car of a senior reporter before leaving the car park. And I experienced the surprise of silence after discovering (one hour later) that I had threaded my tape the wrong way during an interview with the head of the Cornish fire brigade.
Training is indeed about learning from your mistakes. That learning also gave me the chance to go on assignments to Germany and Kazakhstan within the first two years of my first proper job - as a producer with the BBC World Service.
Over the past 20 years, I've been privileged to see the fruits of the BBC's unique dedication to training in action, through the talent of so many people I've worked with - on film, on the airwaves, live, behind the scenes. The bringing together of every element of the BBC's journalism training - regional, national and international - in a College has made that dedication more effective and more prominent, within and, just as importantly, outside the BBC.
The scope of what we can now offer is huge: from basic journalism skills to specific craft skills; from masterclasses to short-and-sweet modules on areas such as interviewing, economics and explaining the 'Big Bang Theory' (well, maybe not quite, but we do offer training in science journalism).
And it's not just the scope but the reach. A lot of journalists come to us in London; but if they can't we go to them. Recent assignments have included trips to Bangladesh, Jakarta, Moscow, Cairo, Delhi and Dhaka. Within weeks of these, material has made it to air as a direct result of training.
But we can't be everywhere, which is why I'm so pleased that our foreign language websites play their role in spreading our message - and why it's so important that the process of updating them is continuing this week.
Mark James is Head of International Training at the BBC College of Journalism, and is part of the team which develops training programmes for journalists outside the BBC.
