Development of art and design offer in Uist

UHI North, West and Hebrides is committed to working with its staff, students and partners to develop its art and design offer in Uist.

Engagement on courses delivered at Taigh Chearsabhagh will start later this month as part of a wider curriculum review.  

The college is committed to meeting the needs of the local community through a sustainable learning offer and is keen to work with the community to explore how it can develop its arts offer for the future. 

We recognise a recent decision to delay the start of our NC Art and Design programme due to low student numbers has caused uncertainty in the community.  The NC Art and Design course is running and will start on 18th September. We revised the structure of the course due to low numbers, meaning it will be delivered in 18 weeks. However, this does not impact on the qualification and students will still receive a National Certificate on successful completion. 

Hannah Ritchie-Muir, Vice Principal Academic, said: “We welcome the feedback we have received from the local community as this is critical to engagement on the future development of our art and design courses in Uist. We understand how important these courses are and how ingrained they are in the local community and culture of Uist.  

At the same time, we must also review and reflect on the sustainability of these courses which have been facing low numbers over recent years. We are currently working on a more detailed plan for engagement with our staff, students and stakeholders and have been in touch with our partners at Taigh Chearsabhagh and the Uist Arts Association as it’s essential we gather as many views as possible.”