In what could be described as a dream course for many young kids, a Norwegian high school had announced that they would now have eSport games as part of their curriculum. This includes games such as Dota 2, League of Legends, StarCraft 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The Norwegian school, Garnes Vidaregaande Skule, is the first high school in the country to offer this strange new course as a means to teach its students teamwork and motivation.
Starting August 2016, the class will begin. It houses ’15 high-end gaming PCs’ while the vacancy for students in the classroom will be 30. The class is set up so that 15 students will be at the computer practicing and gaming while the other half will be doing numerous physical exercises including reflex, body strength building and endurance training. The school has already announced that in the early stages, the curriculum will facilitate only two of the top most requested games to be taught. Regardless of what game, the selection process for trainers and coaches will still be rigorous.
This process of study will depend on primarily self-education as there will never be a textbook for these courses. The reliance on one another and the coaches to improve makes this a difficult course to do particularly well in; let alone have a chance to break into the eSports scene. The latter of which is one of the desired outcomes from the course. An interview with Petter Grahl Johnstad from DotaBlast talks through the nuances of having this breakthrough and how to make it succeed.
It’s early days for this sort of curriculum and unless it can show outstanding results in its projected ‘three-year-span’, it won’t expand further than that. So here’s hoping the Norwegian team can show themselves as a dominate force within the eSports scene.