A computing competition has been launched by Government to encourage secondary school female students aged 11 and 12 take up computing studies in Form 3.

Called ‘Only Girls Allowed’, the competition that will run until November 4, is being organised by the Malta Information Technology Agency, the University’s Faculty of Education and the eLearning Centre within the Directorate for Quality and Standards in Education. It is supported by Microsoft.

Competitors have to up in groups of three and with the help of a school teacher create a 3D game using Kodu, or an interactive story - not longer than five minutes - using Storytelling Alice on nature, music or fashion.

Kodu and Storytelling Alice are programming tools available for free online.

The mentors received training during the summer holidays. Winners will be judged for creativity, originality, entertainment value and quality.

Six teams (three for storytelling, and three for games) will we chosen as the winners and receive tablets, headphones and consoles.

Tokens will be given to all participants and mentors.

Parliamentary Secretary Edward Zammit Lewis said that the number of female students who opted for computing studies was half that of male students.

In 2012, there were 793 boys and 453 girls that sat for the computing exam at O level against 972 boys and 549 girls two years earlier.

Education Minister Evarist Bartolo noted that, consistently, 10 per cent of female students did better than their male peers in nearly all subjects. But this was not reflected in the information technology subjects.

Literacy was not just tied to writing and reading in English and Maltese, he stressed.