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By Natasha Lomas, 8 July 2008 16:19

NEWS

The UK games industry needs to play a more active role in academia, helping to shape the syllabuses of university courses to ensure games development students graduate with the right skills for industry, a Westminster Media Forum Keynote Seminar on the UK computer games industry has heard.

A games industry lobby group recently warned UK games developers are struggling to find staff as dedicated video games courses are failing to equip university grads with the right skills for the workplace.

Of the 81 undergraduate courses on offer in the UK, only four are accredited by government body Skillset - three in Scotland and one in Wales.

Speaking at the Forum, Kate O'Connor, executive director of policy and development at Skillset, said university applications for Skillset accreditation for games development courses "trickled" in when the scheme was first launched, and "have now completely stopped".

O'Connor said: "What we'd like to see happen now [from industry] is an energetic approach to accrediting the kitemark that the industry's developed, that the industry's willing to support, that the industry's spent time promoting - and would like a push to support the higher education institutions… This is about providing incentives for higher education to work more closely with industry."

She added: "We'd like the industry to really step up to the plate in all sorts of ways to work with higher education to be supportive in the work that they do so we can co-ordinate greater input into the curriculum and support that they provide for higher education courses."

Anthony Watts, a student at the University of Glamorgan who is doing a BSC (Hons) in Computer Games - one of Skillset's kitemarked courses - said students would welcome industry getting more involved in syllabus creation and development - or 'educating the educators' - if it meant they could graduate confident they have the necessary skills for employment. He added that students he's talked to "often have a surprisingly vague idea" of the skills they need to enter the industry.

Watts said: "Skill requirements vary widely from company to company - [so] it can be very difficult for an academic institution to tailor an appropriate syllabus that will be attractive across the board."

Watts pointed out that many UK grads are seeking work abroad in countries such as Canada where prospects can be better - and said the UK games industry must therefore play its part in ensuring skilled and talented grads don't go elsewhere.

He said: "Surely in these circumstances it pays for the developers to have as much influence as possible over the skills brought in by graduates and junior staff."

Also speaking at the event, Mary Matthews, strategy and business development director of Blitz Games Studios, conceded skills shortages in the UK "are constraining our business".

She said job applicants from overseas made up nine per cent last year but, up to July this year, are 27 per cent. "We can't do what we want to do because we can't find the right people," she said. "UK graduates who come to us don't have the right portfolios, they don't have the skillsets we're looking for."

Matthews said Blitz invests about four per cent of its salary bill in training and outreach, and while she said this is an area in which every business should invest, she added "what concerns us is the level we are having to invest". She said: "We're having to bring people up to even the basic level - and that's taking about one per cent of that spend."

Internal initiatives include an academy to pass on skills through peer-to-peer mentoring, and "an apprenticeship finishing school for young programmers who perhaps don't quite have the skillset we need ". Of the six people taken on that scheme last year, all of them have stayed at Blitz.

But when it comes to working to develop skills for the good of the whole industry - rather than specifically for those people inside (or likely to stay inside) its own four walls - Matthews said it can feel like "giving and giving and giving into a black hole".

She said: "We'd like to be incentivised to work more closely with universities… As a business we expect to see some return on investment."

Matthews added: "If we're going to create these wonderful smart people to work in the games industry we need to give a strong games industry to go with it. We need to make sure the UK is a fantastic place to do business. We need a government that's absolutely committed to supporting the industry - that's absolutely clear on the value of innovation and creativity."