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Sweden has been officially asked by
Vietnam (who is hosting the 5th Asia-Europe meeting,
ASEM), to put forward a topic for the ASEM high-level
conference in 2006 on the applications of ICT in human
resource development and capacity building. Sweden,
through the Swedish Development Cooperation Agency (Sida)
commissioned a study to answer the question if computer
games for learning could develop into a Swedish contribution.
The initial study was performed during the summer 2004
and it can be found here (report
in Swedish).
In general, educational resources are
scarce in developing countries and emerging economies.
Therefore, from an international development perspective,
any alternative learning method that could reduce the
burden on traditional school systems would be a step
in the right direction. In this respect, computer games
may be an option to help bridge the lack of teaching
resources while at the same time creating a new culture
for learning. Hence, computer games could turn out to
be a primary product for social progress. This could
be the basis for a courageous open-minded contribution
to the high-level conference, and the starting point
for an even broader international collaboration on the
possibilities of using computer games for human resources
development.
The question is: Would Swedish/Scandinavian
computer game researchers, the industry and users take
on the challenge to transform deep-rooted education
techniques?
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