Game-based learning project for early school leavers launched

A number of entities have launched a game based learning project to target early school leavers, parliamentary secretary for economic growth Jose Herrera said earlier today.

Speaking during a press conference Herrera said that educators in schools around Europe face a lot of challenges, amongst which there is early school leaving and lack of student engagement. 

“This collaborative project aims at challenging traditional teaching methodologies and opening up to more innovative game-based learning,” he said, adding it was an Erasmus+ Project.

“This project is to create a guide book and an online interactive toolkit which will serve as a first stepping stone to encourage students to continue their studies, by embedding English and Maths with ICT.”

Herrera added that the project by MITA sought to bridge the gap between digital competencies and early school leavers, enhancing the latter’s interest and motivation in the subject matter and hopefully reducing the risk of early school leaving.  

“It compliments existing programmes in Malta and Europe targeting early school leavers, adding the game based learning approach – a new approach which still needs to be piloted to a larger scale across Europe.”

Herrera said that education is considered a key element where technology will be valuable and fruitful.  In fact, during the Digital Malta workshop organised some weeks ago, one of the areas of discussion was digital education to give Malta the opportunity to continue growing as a digitally-enabled nation.

 He emphasised that the aims of this project are two-fold: to give early school leavers the opportunity to explore new ways of learning and to offer educators an opportunity to embrace technology, learn new teaching methods and explore cross-disciplinary approaches.

“The use of serious games, as a learning tool can get the students more engaged in the particular subject and as a consequence of playing the game learn specific skills,” he said, adding that with proper training, the use of games in schools as a learning tool can contribute towards enhanced learning and to instil more creativity in classrooms.

Herrera added that the project will come to an end in September 2017 where results will be analysed and recommendations and best practices evaluated for future projects.

“This approach to learning aims to be disseminated and incorporated into the school curricula of other European countries to sustain future initiatives and projects.”

He added that the partnership strives to achieve a dynamic competence building within the teaching community and serve as a catalyst for change for both educators and students in Europe and also internationally.

Herrera added that the initiative brought together MITA, St Margaret’s College, University of Malta, Donau University in Austria, and Nystromska School in Sweden.