A new full time course for photojournalists will run at Darlington College this year after approval was granted by the industry's main training organisation.

The National Council for the Training of Journalists has given the college provisional accreditation to run a pre-entry certificate in Digital Photojournalism.

The course will teach trainees to produce strong digital still and moving images and to produce top-quality news stories and captions to accompany them.

Head of journalism Tony Metcalf said: "The NCTJ particularly praised the skills of the journalism staff here at Darlington, and the facilities available to us.

"This is a new course that the industry tells us is very necessary. We are delighted at this provisional accreditation."

Staff at some of the UK's top independent freelance press agencies have helped create the course and one of them, David Parry of the Ross Parry agency in Leeds, will help teach it.

The course is the first of its kind and is the first new NCTJ-accredited photojournalism course in the UK for many years.

It will be delivered at Darlington College's award-winning Media Design Centre, which is the hub of the College's Centre of Vocational Excellence in digital media.

Picture editors and chief photographers from newspapers and press agencies around the UK have given their backing for the new course, which they regard as leading the way in delivering the skills necessary for photojournalists in the modern era.

It was granted provisional approval in the same week as Kodak announced that it would stop selling traditional 35mm film cameras in the UK because the demand for digital cameras had become so great.

The NCTJ, the leading awards body in the field of journalism training, routinely accredits new courses on a provisional basis. Its staff will appraise the new course at Darlington after its first year of operation.

Anyone interested in details of the new course should contact (01325) 503270.

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