A school in Sweden is on the lookout for its next eSports star.
And in its hopes to find the country its next top female gamer, adult education center Strombacks Folkhogskola is gearing up to launch a one-year course in eSports that focuses on the Counter Strike franchise.
In an interview with The Local, course administrator Johan Agren said they were inspired by a school in Norway, which has a similar course. That school was the Garnes Videregående Skole, the first educational institution in the West to add eSports to its curriculum. At the Norwegian school, students have the option to select five hours of gaming instead of participating in sports such as soccer, basketball or baseball.
“Part of our job as educators is to be where the people are, and this is incredibly huge at the moment,” Agren told the Swedish news outlet.
Strombacks Folkshogskola’s course will be the platform that will launch the country’s next eSports champion. Agren told The Local: “We’re going to choose those [prospective students] who are already good at it and want to become even better. At the same time, just like in any other sport, take football for example, there is a lot of competition out there.”
But unlike in sports, Agren said Strombacks Folkshogskola aims to even out the men-women imbalance in the competitive gaming sector, vowing that the center “will work hard to attract more women.”
“There are no reasonable ground why gaming should be so dominated by guys, we’re not talking about powerlifting here,” Agren said, according to the news outlet.
Well, the Swedish school might have to crank up its search for the country’s next Counter Strike champion.
Recently, Valve Corporation announced that all upcoming major Counter Strike: Global Offensive tournaments, including the MLG Columbus 2016, will now feature an increased prize pool totaling $1 million.
“CS:GO tournaments are now among the largest eSports events in the world, drawing global audiences of millions of viewers, filling massive venues and garnering higher prize pools. Professional CS:GO has grown, and the CS:GO Major Championships are about to grow with it,” Valve said in a blog post.
MLG Columbus 2016 will run from March 29 to April 3 in Columbus, Ohio.
