The poor quality of education provided for aspiring vfx artists and games programmers in the UK has been highly criticised in an 86-page document from NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts).
The report, called ‘Next Gen’ (click here to download a copy) was commissioned by Ed Vaizey, the minister for Culture, Communications and the Creative Industries in July last year and is an extensive review of the skills needs of the UK’s video games and vfx industries.
The review was undertaken by “one of the UK’s founding fathers of interactive entertainment” Ian Livingstone OBE and Double Negative md Alex Hope. It comes up with a long list of conclusions, with the bottom line being that, unless something is done quickly, the UK is in danger of seriously lagging behind the rest of the world in terms of its vfx and video games skills.
The bulk of ‘Next Gen’ is based on interviews with university course assessors and over half the UK’s video games and vfx employers, most of whom have real concerns about the quality of maths and computer programming skills being taught.
The survey found there’s a significant ‘disconnect’ between what is taught at University and the skills required in industry. A noteworthy 70% of course assessors say students have “a poor or unrealistic understanding of what working in the video games or vfx industries actually involves”.
As a result, there’s a massive oversupply of graduates not properly equipped for working in industry. The proportion of graduates from specialist vfx courses who find a job in the sector within six months of graduating is only 15.4%. However, where students attend well-respected courses the figures are wildly different, with a much higher 53% of graduates from the National Centre for Computer Animation at Bournemouth finding a job in vfx within six months of graduation.
Feedback from over half the vfx companies questioned in the survey says that despite the large pool of UK graduates available, they still have difficulties filling entry-level positions. The ‘Next Gen’ report believes the education system is failing to produce talent of the calibre the vfx industry now needs, and points out that companies are frequently forced to recruit from abroad.
It concludes that the UK education system needs to adapt to ensure the UK keeps up with other countries that actively promote the games and vfx industries. “Sadly, in most cases, the courses are simply not producing graduates with the skills that industry needs,” says Alex Hope. “Universities too often appear to be focused on attracting students onto their course rather than pushing up the standards of those graduating. Universities need to raise their entry standards, requiring applicants to have a demonstrable aptitude for art, maths and computer science skills.”
One of the report’s key suggestions is that radical changes now need to be made to transform the prospects of the UK’s high-tech creative industries. These include computer science being added to the national curriculum, alongside maths and physics. There should also be video games and vfx-focused after school clubs to provide young people with hands-on experience. And the accreditation of university and FE courses should be strengthened, building on Skillset’s existing scheme.
Amongst the recommendations of ‘Next Gen’ is to introduce a kitemarking scheme to enable specialist HE courses to differentiate themselves from less industry-relevant courses. The industry-accredited courses should then receive targeted Government funding as recognition of their status.
As well as concentrating on the skills needs of industry, the report also looks at the awareness of the video games and vfx industries amongst school students. It questioned over 550 young people about where they thought the vfx on a number of major feature films (including Harry Potter, Prince of Persia and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice) were created and only a mere 9% knew they were created in the UK.
At the launch event for ‘Next Gen’, held at Leicester Square’s VUE cinema yesterday, Ian Livingstone said, “Schools aren’t adapting quickly enough. The UK has gone backwards as regards computing skills.”
Paying reference to classic early computer games such as Elite, Jetpac, Lemmings, Sensible Soccer and Worms, he added, “The Sinclair Spectrum and BBC Micro provided a thirst for creative computing that helped lead to the rapid development of a very strong UK gaming industry. That thirst is no longer there and nowadays ICT fails to encourage the study of computer programming.”
Also at the launch event, Alex Hope said about the UK’s universities: “Bournemouth, Abertay and some others have got it right, but these are the exceptions. The good ones should be recognised and supported by Government. The Skillset accreditation process to signpost high-quality courses needs to be fast, rigorous and not too onerous to manage. There also needs to be league tables measuring the effectiveness of courses seeing graduated going into industry.”
Meanwhile, underlining the lack of public awareness of the UK’s vfx industry, Ed Vaizey admitted at the launch event: “I’ve come across this world by accident. I think most politicians don’t realise the UK has one of the most important vfx industries in the world and it's just up the road. This report highlights the importance of this industry and I hope there will now be a revolution in education. It’s about a change in focus, not a wish list of things requiring money from Government.”
