Key skills enhancement for students, artists and designers through residencies in education

In September 1999, the Glasgow School of Art 'Artists and Designers in Educ ation' programme was accepted as an important component of the GOALS projec t, an ACCESS initiative funded by the Scottish Higher Education Funding Cou ncil including students in schools as project leaders, tutors and mentors. This stable and long-term funding validates and ensures the future of an ex perimental key skills programme which has been carefully nurtured in Glasgo w School of Art for the past ten years, often in the face of scepticism, vo iced by those for whom higher education and especially higher art and desig n education is 'only about engaging with, becoming expert in and in due cou rse advancing the discipline itself.' [1] This paper suggests that key skil ls enhancement through supported and evaluated residencies in education is of demonstrable value to most emergent artists and designers regardless of their subsequent career trajectories.