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I don't care what anybody says, education is vital and starting early is definitely becoming more and more important, especially in this age of ever increasing technology.

Thankfully, the number of people who recognise this fact are also on the increase, leading to the exciting range of children's educational games now on the market: learning for fun on a computer has got to be one of the best starts a child can get before proper schooling has commenced.

One of the latest games houses to get in on the act is Gremlin, with a brand new label entitled First Class. The first offering on this exciting new label introduces some characters which are already household names with younger children, and is guaranteed to be a major success in the fun learning stakes.

First Class With The Shoe People presents six different activities, designed to allow the child to play and learn on their own. Easy to master and with difficulty levels designed to increase as the child progresses, some parental supervision is required to set the child off, before they really get to grips with the fun themselves.

Trampy Visits His Friends, the first activity, encourages the child to match up a whole host of shapes, colours, words, letters and objects, using simple controls which the child can easily recognise.

Charlie's Big Day helps kiddies to sort out sequences and events, formulating an outcome from a series of occurrences, while Sgt. Major Sorts It Out is based upon classification of shapes and sizes.

Covering an extremely broad spectrum of basic education, the child is asked to recognise letters and words in The Great Alphabet Robbery, with numbers and simple addition being taken care of by Wellington Goes to the Park.

All of the games are designed specifically to be fun to use, featuring colourful animation and special sound effects to reward the child for correct choices.

Rounding off this first outing is an excellent computer colouring and drawing game called Margot's Magic Colouring Book. Using lines, shapes and colours, there is virtually no limit to the fun, testing the child's imagination to the very limit.

Of course, not only do the games offer an excellent starting point for the many learning skills required by youngsters, but the activities are also devised to familiarise young people with computers and the techniques used to operate them, something that, in this day and age, is essential. The younger you are, the faster you learn, so to speak, and this is one excellent offering that'll keep young children happy for hours, testing their minds all the while.