After 20 years of working with Glasgow University, Christie’s education arm is changing its postgraduate degree accrediting partner to the UK’s Open University from autumn 2017. Jane Hay, the international managing director of Christie’s Education, says that the change reflects a fluid higher education landscape. “There are increasingly regulatory complexities in offering Scottish academic qualifications in an English context,” Hay wrote in a letter to alumni in August. The challenges for Scottish institutions after Brexit are another unknown factor, she says.
Glasgow is part of the UK’s so-called Russell Group of its top 24 universities, while the Open University is not. However, Hay says, she is “very pleased” with Christie’s Education’s new partner. Sotheby’s Institute of Art’s equivalent education programme in London continues to be accredited by the University of Manchester, a Russell Group member.
Christie’s Education will pull out of its undergraduate programme in 2017, when it will also move to Christie’s South Kensington building, which is being revamped.
