THE highly-rated teaching at UHI Inverness is having a positive impact in classrooms 3,000 miles away from the Highlands, by bringing face-to-face English classes to an African workforce.
UHI Inverness has launched an ambitious large-scale English language training programme designed to transform workforce skills at a West African gold mine.
The programme will support 124 employees to progress from beginner to advanced English over the next two years, enhancing communication and career development opportunities across the site.
A team from UHI Inverness, led by Depute Curriculum Leader Roz Bullard, flew out to Guinea on Monday, 27 April to begin the first four-week block of teaching.
Their lessons will be complemented by online teaching.
UHI Inverness first introduced English for Speakers of Other Languages classes to line managers at the site more than a year ago.
The success of the first two phases of the programme, which involved curriculum staff travelling to Guinea to assess and teach the managers, led to this latest phase which will run until August 2028 and represents a significant expansion of the programme in just 12 months.
The partnership began in 2025 with an on-site assessment led by UHI Inverness lecturers, who evaluated the English language levels of more than 100 staff and reviewed training facilities.
The findings informed the design of a tailored programme, which delivered strong results.
During the second phase, the first group of line managers completed an intensive programme combining face-to-face teaching, online learning and independent study.
Two lecturers travelled to West Africa to provide face-to-face lessons in custom-built classrooms over eight weeks, supplemented with online learning.
The candidates completed the programme and celebrated their success at a ceremony where they were presented with UHI Inverness certificates.
Feedback from participants highlighted the quality and expertise of the teaching, as well as the value of a blended learning approach.
Learners reported increased confidence in using English in the workplace, while also identifying opportunities to further strengthen the programme through greater interaction, extended delivery time and improved digital connectivity.
Their feedback has shaped the design of the expanded programme, which is designed to fit around operational demands.
Ten cohorts will be taken through the ESOL framework in a series of 16-week sessions.
Dr Georgina Parker, Vice Principal at UHI Inverness, who led on securing the commercial contract, said:
“We are delighted to be scaling up this important project in Guinea, building on the strong foundations established by our team to further develop English language capability among our customer’s workforce.
“We have developed a model that will strengthen communication across the operation and provide opportunities for people from local communities to accelerate their career progression.
“The scale and ambition of this new phase demonstrate a clear commitment to workforce development, and we are proud to be delivering a programme that will have a lasting and transformative impact upon organisational performance and the lives of local people.
“This project also provides an important commercial income stream for UHI Inverness at a time when other sources of funding are limited.”
