New educational partnerships in the UK help inspire NextGen talent

Investing in the next generation  

At Electronic Arts, we’re committed to supporting the communities in which we live, play and work. We do this through educating the next generation, creating equality and access for everyone and giving back to the community. As part of our mission to inspire the world to play, it’s also important to us that everyone around the world knows that video games - and the video games industry - are for them.

That’s why today we’re pleased to be continuing our investment in science, technology, engineering, art and maths (STEAM) education in the UK through two partnerships that will help us bridge the gap between education and the industry. We’ve teamed up with not-for-profit organisation Digital Schoolhouse (DSH) and expanded our partnership with education technology company EVERFI to reach 150 schools across the UK.

According to the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), the current STEM skills gap in the UK costs the country a shocking £1.5bn a year.

By working together with partners as passionate as us, we hope to inspire a lifelong interest in computer science while showing the varied and exciting career paths open to students should they pursue a future in this field.

Partnerships to inspire 

Through our new partnership with Digital Schoolhouse, delivered by the UK games industry trade body Ukie, we're introducing a creative computing workshop designed to help teachers engage primary school students with the basic principles of coding and computer science. The workshop enables young students to work with video game Knockout City, which is developed by Velan Studios as part of the EA Originals programme, to explore what it takes to teach an AI to play dodgeball. It’s a fun, interactive workshop that will bring kids face to face with the game through online and offline exercises, and will be freely available to all 52 primary schools in the Digital Schoolhouse network. 

For secondary school students, we will be expanding our already-established partnership with EVERFI to bring EA Play to Learn to the UK. The course brings to life what a meaningful career in STEAM might look like at the critical junction where students begin making important decisions about their futures.

Across the US and Canada, we’ve already seen the programme have success with over 67,000 students in over 650 schools since 2016 and we’re incredibly proud to be bringing it to the UK.

We believe young people of all backgrounds should be given the opportunity to develop the skills they need for a future in STEAM and we are proud to play our part in making that a reality. We’ve had a presence in the UK for over 30 years and these partnerships are the next step of our firm commitment to invest in and inspire the next generation of UK game-makers.