NC Computer Games Development

Scotland has a strong reputation in computer games, and we've tried to reflect that with a world leading portfolio of national qualifications in this area.

We began development of an HNC and HND Computer Games Development in 2008, and these were available to centres in August 2009. In that same year we began development of NPAs in Computer Games Development and these were available from August 2010. In 2010, a group of colleges began development of a National Certificate (NC), and this is now available to centres (the Arrangements will be available shortly).

The NC qualification is at SCQF Level 5, and there has been a lot of interest in developing a more advanced NC award at SCQF Level 6. This morning, I met with Genevieve McCabe, of our NQGA team, to take this forward.

The Level 5 qualification was developed under SQA's Specialist Collaborative Development system, which is intended to be used when a small group of centres want to create a new qualification. This new development, at Level 6, would be a Consortium Development, which is a model we use for larger developments that will interest a high number of centres. Consortium developments are led by my team.

We agreed to take this forward at this morning's meeting. We hope to have the new NC in Computer Games Development at SCQF Level 6 available to centres from August 2012. Hilary will work with me on this project.

Please contact Hilary if you are interested in finding out more about this development.