One of the biggest knocks on the PlayStation brand from a development standpoint is that studios and schools have always had a hard time getting the tools they need from Sony to begin working with the system. Therefore, whenever new hardware launches there’s an extended period of time where quality suffers as programmers and engineers struggle with the learning curve. Sony is now hoping to make this issue obsolete with the launch of PlayStation-edu.

The new programs will allow qualifying college and grad school institutions to purchase PS2 and PSP dev kits that include hardware, dev software, SDK, demo codes and samples. The hope is, that by providing these materials while students are still in school, that they will graduate armed with the knowledge and practical experience to jump right in and start creating games on Sony platforms.

This is quite an ingenious move on the part of Sony, as it will be easy for them to track which schools purchase the kits and then target those schools for recruitment when they are looking for new employees. Furthermore, even those graduates who go work for third-party studios will already have experience working with these materials and will therefore be ready to jump right into whatever PlayStation-related project is set before them.

Full details on PlayStation-edu, as well as how to begin the process of signing up is available on the Playstation.Blog. If you’re a student interested in what Sony is offering then now may be a good time to start dropping hints for the fall semester.