Three colleges within the University of the Highlands and Islands reveal merger plan to develop one new college "of scale and impact"
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Three colleges within the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) plan to merge to form a new college.
North Highland College UHI, West Highland College UHI and Lews Castle College UHI, have embarked on a strategic project seeking to form a new institution within the UHI partnership by January 2023.
They believe it is a unique opportunity to develop a new college "of scale and impact", serving and supporting around 9000 students in 20 remote rural and island campus locations.
A merger partnership board has been formed to achieve the vision and aims of all three colleges and to steer the process.
It consists of the principals and board chairmen of the three organisations, together with staff and student representatives from the three college boards and members of the Highlands and Islands Students’ Association.
The board will develop a proposal to inform the final decision of each of the college boards involved.
The board is chaired by Dr Michael Foxley, who served as the UHI regional lead for further education between 2014-2021.
A merger co-ordinator will be appointed in the next few weeks to work across all three colleges to support the merger partnership board, associated work and the full consultation process.
In a joint statement, the college principals said: "We believe this is a unique opportunity to develop a new college of scale and impact that serves and supports around 9000 students in 20 remote rural and island campus locations across the Highlands, Skye and the Western Isles.
"We will bring together and build on existing excellence and expertise within our three organisations in order to drive a step change for education from school to university as well as in research, enterprise and innovation in our region.
"Whilst there is a huge amount of work to be done over the next few months to explore with our key staff, students and stakeholders whether this can be successfully achieved, we agree that this is the absolute best option for our colleges.
"We believe we can better serve our students and our communities by providing a wider range of study options for our students and strengthened career pathways and job satisfaction for our staff.
"We will also be able to unlock new opportunities for future strategic development and investment through ambitious collaborations and projects that, as single small colleges, we are unable to achieve."
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