Training for Audio Description (AD) is far from uniform across Europe. It seems to be a mirror reflection of the AD market in the respective countries: in the more AD-advanced countries (such as the UK or Germany) AD training opportunities are greater, with training courses being offered at universities (often as part of AVT courses), by AD practitioners or industry organisations. On the other hand, in the less AD-developed countries (such as Poland) such courses are practically non-existent or are very slowly coming into being.
The situation on the global arena as regards Audio Description is changing, with the voice of associations for the visually impaired being more and more audible, and the need to make the visual media accessible to people with visual impairments being increasingly recognised by national governments, the European Union and the public at large.
These changing global attitudes will surely impact the local requirements in individual countries, resulting in unprecedented demand for audio described materials and, by the same token, for well-qualified audio describers. This directly translates into a pressing need to set up AD training courses in the respective countries to meet the demand.
Are the countries prepared to meet this challenge? Where should AD be taught? Who should teach it? Should a uniform European AD curriculum be developed, in view of the possible standardisation of European AD guidelines? If so, who should be in charge of such curriculum development and how should it be implemented? Will it be possible to account for all the different AD conventions and existing audience preferences in such a curriculum? Although it is highly probable that no definite answers are to be found to these questions, I trust that the roundtable discussion will shed new light on these and other issues relevant for training future audio describers.