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Overview
Appealing to a largely Scottish clientele (99.4% of admissions via Ucas last year were Scots), the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) has recruited the highest proportion of students from the 20% of Scottish postcodes considered to be the most deprived for the past eight years. It makes higher education an attainable proposition for many who would otherwise miss out. Last year’s Times Higher Education Impact Rankings placed UWS second in Scotland and tenth in the UK when measured against the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10 for reducing inequalities. Employer-focused degrees are offered across four campuses in south-west Scotland, with the biggest of them in Paisley, Scotland’s largest town. Further outposts in Ayr, Dumfries and Hamilton (known as the Lanarkshire campus) have seen heavy recent investment. There is a new campus in London, too, offering international business and professional health studies undergraduate degrees and several masters options.
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Paying the bills
Means-tested support is given to cover childcare, which is a valuable source when about 60% of your students are mature returners to education. It cost the university about £1.2m last year. A discretionary fund of £1m helps students meet their basic living costs. The UWS Undergraduate Honours Year Scholarship keeps the price of a UWS degree the same as in the rest of the UK for the 447 students English, Welsh or Northern Irish students eligible for it last year. With UWS degrees running over four years – as most Honours degrees do in Scotland – it effectively waives the final year of tuition fees, pegging tuition to £27,750. Students from the rest of the UK and Ireland are also eligible for a UWS Merit Bursary worth £1,000 in each year of study. The WEST (Widening Education and Supporting Talent) Scholarship offers 15 awards worth £1,250 per year to a maximum of £5,000 over four years to remove financial barriers that might prevent students attending university. UWS also runs a sports scholarship programme with gold, silver and bronze awards worth £1,500, £750 and £500 respectively, plus access to mentoring, coaching and other support services.
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What’s new?
New simulated hospital wards are part of the recently completed multi-million-pound makeover of the UWS campus in Dumfries. The focus of the development, co-located with Dumfries & Galloway College, has been to create modern practice-based learning facilities to serve an extensive range of UWS courses, particularly those serving the health and social care sector. An immersive learning suite uses 360-degree video to simulate complex indoor and outdoor medical scenarios, allowing students to respond to them in a controlled and safe setting. Looking after students’ health has also been prioritised with the extension of free gym membership to all students and staff across all UWS sports facilities. The move is designed to positively impact mental health and wellbeing, improve fitness, boost productivity and engagement and enhance social lives. In response to the cost of living crisis, free breakfasts are now provided for students on the Ayr, Lanarkshire and Paisley campuses on weekdays. Meanwhile, the UWS students’ union has been named University Students’ Association of the Year at the 2023 NUS Scotland awards for its work in shaping education and empowering individuals.
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Admissions, teaching and student support
With about a third of UWS students coming from the most deprived postcodes in Scotland, UWS is the leading university in Scotland for widening participation. ‘Value is placed not only on qualifications, but life and work experience,’ the university told us. A contextual admissions scheme cuts one Higher grade from the standard entry criteria dependent on the individual circumstances of the applicant. Those living in deprived postcodes, attending UWS partner schools, care leavers or carers, and estranged students are among those eligible for a contextual offer. The university also runs transition modules during the summer immediately prior to joining the university to support students coming from under-represented groups. A student mental health agreement between the university and students’ union actively promotes mental health on campus. Students have access to a counselling service with no waiting lists and a student buddies system offers peer-support through online or in-person meetings and events for students providing informal support. After a period when the model of learning and teaching has been flexible in accommodating more online and hybrid approaches, UWS is focusing on increased on-campus teaching in the new academic year, supplemented by a range of online provision to support live lectures, seminars and tutorials.