Bucharest, October 1, 2024 – RBJ – The Games in Schools program, in which hundreds of students across the country learn history, geography and many other subjects with the help of video games, enters a new phase this fall. The Romanian Video Game Developers Association (RGDA) started the Games in Schools program in 2022 with the aim of providing alternative tools for teachers who want to make the subjects they teach more attractive to secondary school students. The Games in Schools program is a RGDA project, supported by UniCredit Bank.
Games in Schools began two years ago as a pilot program dedicated to teachers who use video games as educational resources. In the first phase of the project, which started in the fall of 2022, RGDA predominantly targeted rural students in 20 schools. Students from counties such as Constanța, Bihor, Dolj, Suceava, Iași, Ilfov, Galați, Maramureș and Brașov benefited from the program. The European handbook “Games in Schools”, produced by the European School Network and ISFE (Interactive Software Federation of Europe), was translated into Romanian by RGDA and made available to teachers.
In the second phase, which will be launched this fall, several hundred other teachers from all over the country will be initiated in this project by RGDA and the Ministry of Education, through Casa Corpului Didactic București. The teachers who will go through this intensive training program will themselves be able to become promoters of this method in their own schools. The aim is to increase the number of children who have access to these innovative educational resources, with the goal of reaching tens of thousands of children in a few years.
RGDA, together with Casa Corpului Didactic, will launch an endorsed course dedicated to teachers across the country, offered through Casa’s eLearning platform. The course includes two modules: a course that provides them with all the tools to use video games in the classroom and an introductory course in video game development for high school students.
“Video games are a passion for many children, and if used properly, they can also be a medium through which children understand, explore or sediment a given subject, they help with developing cognitive, spatial and motor skills, and also with the understanding of cause-effect relationships as well as complex problem solving. I am glad that Games in Schools will reach more teachers who are open to integrating video games into their teaching, but also as many children as possible in Romania,” Andreea Medvedovici Per, Executive Director at RGDA, stated.
“Education is a core value for UniCredit Bank, and supporting the Games in Schools project reflects our commitment in bringing children closer to education through new technologies, taking into account the new reality that surrounds us. We believe that this innovative way of learning through video games, so loved by children, can stimulate students’ interest and make learning an enjoyable and effective experience,” Anca Ungureanu, Head of Identity & Communication at UniCredit Bank, declared.
According to the 2022 RGDA study, in Romania, approximately 8 million Romanians aged 15-64 play video games. Of these, women play in equal numbers to men. Among avid gamers (who usually play at least a few times a week), the average age is 27 for men and 32 for women.
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The Romanian Game Developers Association (RGDA) is a non-profit organization that aims to support and promote video game developers based in Romania. Guided by solid values, RGDA promotes integrity, quality, exchange of best practices, respect and mutual help as means of developing the local industry. The objectives of the association are to inform the general public about the industry, to ensure that there are sufficient sources of training and education for those who wish to pursue a career in the field, to create a close community of developers and to represent the industry in front of state institutions and international players.
