TIGA adds new educational advisers
University professors take new roles, as TIGA criticises Skills for Growth plans
UK-based trade association TIGA has announced the appointment of the University of Bedfordshire's Professor Carsten Maple and the University of Portsmouth's Mark Eyles as the organisation's new education advisers.
The new roles are intended to cement TIGA's ties with educational institutions, as well as help develop its new diplomas in game development and games design. Eyles and Maple will initially focus on these new diplomas, produced in conjunction with Train2Game.
Eyles was previously head of design at Rebellion and has also been a designer, producer and manager at companies including Quicksilva, Sega, EE, MicroProse, Activision, SCI, Nintendo and Climax. He is currently principal lecturer in the School of Creative Technologies, Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries, at the University of Portsmouth.
Maple developed one of the first BSc computer games development programs in the UK and is currently head of department for computer science and technology at the University of Bedfordshire.
"TIGA is committed to helping academia and industry foster ever closer links and to ensuring we assist wherever possible in closing the UK skills gap. The appointment of Mark and Carsten as TIGA Education Advisers will greatly assist in these areas and will ensure we are able to offer the best possible advice to our members and wider industry," said TIGA CEO Richard Wilson.
TIGA has also commented today on the UK government's policy document Skills for Growth, criticising plans to increase skills in the UK workforce as "too bureaucratic and centrally driven in nature". The lack of a role for trade associations was also criticised.
"Reducing the number of sectors skills councils by 2012 will presumably mean that the remainder will have to be responsible for an even larger and more diverse set of business sectors," said TIGA's Wilson.
"Yet one size does not fit all. The effect may well be to leave sector skills councils increasingly out of touch and remote from real employers."
"The UK needs a skills system that is genuinely responsive to employer and learner demand," continued Wilson. "Further education colleges could be given more money in the form of a direct block grant and offer courses that genuinely meet demand.
"Train to Gain, a scheme whereby employers can benefit from full or partial public funding, could be made even more flexible and used to fund a greater variety of courses at all levels," he added.
"To stimulate training and to promote an employer led skills system, a proportion of a business’s expenditure on education and training could be offset against corporation tax."