TIGA Warns Of UK Skills Shortage, Females Under-Represented

Only 10 percent of entrants for the most recent A-Level qualification testing are female -- just one problem that could lead to a narrowing talent pool for the UK's game industry, says TIGA, the region's trade body representing game developers. The A-Level testing (Advanced Level General Certificate of Education) is a qualification offered by education institutions in England, Northern Ireland, Wales, Cameroon, and the Cayman Islands. It is the standard entry qualification to gauge the suitability of applicants for academic courses in UK universities. While art and design, mathematics, further mathematics and physics entries showed increase this year, TIGA said it saw a "worrisome" drop in A-Level computing entries. A-Level results show the strongest gain in mathematics with 4,026 new entries, followed by 1,540 entries for physics, 1,209 new entries for further mathematics, 645 new entries for computing and 215 entries for art and design. There is still a strong trend towards males for A-Level computing, with only 360 females enrolled versus 3,704 males. "Computer games developers need gifted people with a mastery of subjects such as physics, art, mathematics and computing," says TIGA CEO Richard Wilson. "It is encouraging to see increases in A-Level entries for some of these subjects, but the continuing decline in entries for computing is disappointing.” "The games development sector is suffering a skills shortage," he continued. "The Government needs to encourage greater numbers to study these subjects through measures such as lower tuition fees for computer science and mathematics degree courses."