Netflix said on Sunday it will run an education programme for audio description (AD) specialists from May, in cooperation with Pixelogic Korea and Iyuno Korea, its domestic production partners for AD for the visually impaired.

This year's programme establishes a two-track system by adding an "AD narrator" course to the existing reviewer training course. It will select up to 6 people. After completing the course, participants can also take part in audio description work for Netflix content.

In the six-week programme, the AD narrator course proceeds step by step, from basic voice training such as breathing, vocalisation, pronunciation and intonation to genre-specific narration practice and actual recording. The reviewer course consists of learning Netflix AD guidelines, practising authoring tools and reviewing AD scripts. Heo Woo-ryeong (허우령), a former KBS anchor who is visually impaired and a current AD narrator, and broadcaster Kim Jae-won (김재원) with 30 years of experience will each participate for one week as narration instructors. An AD writer from the Korean Federation of the Blind (KBU) will lead the training.

Ahead of the education programme, it will hold a "mentoring talk concert" on April 17 for about 100 students and staff at the National School for the Blind in Seoul. Democratic Party lawmaker Seo Mi-hwa (서미화) and announcers Heo and Kim will participate, present career visions and also stage an AD demonstration.

In last year's programme, it trained 6 visually impaired and low-vision people as reviewers, and it led to preparing an accessibility guide for visually impaired workers and improving the production programme environment.

Netflix has run programmes to expand participation by the visually impaired in France, Britain, Spain and India in addition to South Korea, and this year is expanding them to Poland and the Nordic and Benelux regions.

A Netflix official said it was reflecting the voices of visually impaired people who directly experience audio description in the actual production process. The official said the programme was meaningful in that it goes beyond training specialists and expands the foundation for participation in actual work.