The Arts and Design Education bachelor’s programme combines artistic and creative practices with a discursive and context-driven examination of art, design and education. During your studies, you delve into art, design, culture, society, education policy and communication in a practical, theoretical and pedagogical way. You learn to integrate the experience of self-efficacy and the critical potential of artistic and creative action into your teaching practice. You strengthen your ability to talk about creative and artistic issues, acquire manual and technical skills, learn creative research methods, gain knowledge of art and design history, and try out (multi)media ways of working. In the Arts and Design Education bachelor’s study programme, these skills are the foundation for initiating and supporting learning situations and community and educational processes that are sensitive to diversity and sustainability. Collaborations with regional, national and international partners in art, culture and education provide insights and first experiences in the teaching field.
Educational qualifications As a rule, admission to the aptitude assessment for a Bachelor’s degree programme in Arts and Design Educationrequires one of the following educational qualifications.
a certified vocational baccalaureate
a certified specialized baccalaureate
a certified upper secondary school (level II) baccalaureate
proof of an equivalent educational degree at an upper secondary school (level II) obtained otherwise
an EDK-approved primary school teaching diploma
Language of tuition The language of tuition is German (B2 or equivalent). Proof of language proficiency is required at the start of the degree programme.
Workplace experience or preparatory course in design One year of practical workplace experience or completion of a preparatory course are not mandatory, but recommended.
Catching up on the vocational baccalaureate Applicants who have not completed at least three years of upper secondary schooling (level II) are not legally entitled to admission to a Bachelor's degree programme. Information concerning full-time or part-time on-the-job training courses focusing on a vocational, design-based or specialized baccalaureate is provided by the local vocational colleges.
The detailed information on the aptitude assessment will be published on 1 November 2023. To apply for a place at the HGK Basel, the required documents must be submitted by 15.02.2024.
Please send enquiries regarding specific degree programmes to the appropriate email address.
01.11.2023 Publication of the detailed information on the aptitude assessment
15.02.2024 Registration deadline and deadline for submitting the required documents for the aptitude assessment.
16.09.2024 Fall Semester begin 2024/25
Requirements regarding the portfolio presentation on admission day: Portfolio: At least 12 different projects (mix of paintings, drawings, photos, videos, digital works, crafts, if feasible documentations of art educational projects). Put your workbook or portfolio together with an approach to studying Arts and Design Education. We are interested in a wide range of materials, techniques, ideas, projects, and educational works. Label your workbook or portfolio on the outside in clearly visible and legible writing, indicating name, first name, and address. When presenting your portfolio (duration ca. 10 minutes), make sure you show a broad selection of your work and only go into more detail of a few, carefully selected works.
The programme addresses holders of a Matura diploma who wish to go into teaching with a focus on art, technical design or art history at the level of Secondary School II or work in extracurricular art and design education. The qualification to work professionally only comes with the Master of Arts FHNW degree in Arts and Design Education, teaching diploma for Secondary School II (Maturitätsschulen).
Information on programme contents
Programme structure
The compulsory portion of the study programme is split into the following module groups: Collective Practice; Artistic and Creative Practice; Education, Art and Teaching; Education, Art, Public Space; Artistic Research Methods; Education, Design Media Practice; Education, Transdisciplinarity, Relationships; Education, Art, Media Science; Education, Research, Transfer; Bachelor’s Thesis. The elective portion offers a programme that alternates between the Arts and Design Education and Cocreate module groups. Each spring semester, the specialisation module groups give students a chance to focus on their own projects. In the Collective Practice format, students from all three bachelor’s years work on joint solutions to an overarching issue and in doing so build up team spirit and social and teaching skills in addition to artistic and creative skills. In the compulsory modules for the individual programme years, you develop your own independent artistic position in various media and contexts. You learn to contextualise your own work, reflect on it and integrate it into learning situations, and thus tap into lasting educational inspiration, and spaces for reflection and contextualisation. The comprehensive range of choices gives you the opportunity to delve into your own specialisation in art, design and an experimental and artistic education for a specific target group. The elective area is complemented by the HGK Basel’s CoCreate programme, which is open to students from all semesters, as well as the partner programme of the FHNW’s trinational IBM programme.
The bachelor’s programme yields a broad, interdisciplinary skill set. Accordingly, the practical and theoretical examination of art, culture, design, society and communication are condensed in a profile for arts education work. The training in articulating artistic and creative ideas; in manual, technical and media skills; in art and design history; as well as in the development of creative processes and strategies gives you the opportunity to understand art and design and your media forms as a kind of material with which you can initiate and support transformative building processes.
The study programme is aimed at people who have completed a university-track or vocational secondary education (Gymnasium, Berufsmatur or Fachmatur) and want to introduce art and design working methods into teaching processes and society, and to develop themselves in artistic, creative, pedagogical and media-oriented processes and ways of acting and thinking.
Completion of this bachelor’s programme qualifies students for the Arts and Design Education, Maturität-level teaching degree master’s programme as well as immediate career entry in the field of sociocultural studies, off spaces, independent youth work or institutional education in museums.
With its centrally located on-campus workshops, the HGK Basel provides ideal conditions for combining a curiosity for craftsmanship, the acquisition of new techniques and digital know-how. Students in the Arts and Design Education bachelor’s programme have 24/7 access to their own work station in the studios or the IADE’s learning lab. Video editing stations as well as a media rental service, a paint-mixing space, the extensive use of the sculpture workshop and flexible-use spaces complement the facilities of the IADE. Students have access to the facilities 365 days a year.
Organizational matters
High school diploma (Matura) and qualification to study at the University of Basel respectively.
Entry to the admission procedure is open to applicants who meet the eligibility conditions, supply the required full documentation and register in time.
The admission procedure involves the submission of a work folder and/or portfolio and an entrance interview.
The application deadline is always 15 February
The aptitude assessment concerning a candidate’s artistic and design-related potential as well as his or her communicative and research skills decides on the candidate’s admission to the programme. The results of the test are sent a week after the assessment procedure by post.
Institute Art and Design Education (IADE)
In our age of systematically designed communication, art and design education has a key role to play.
Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW Institute Arts and Design Education (IADE) Freilager-Platz 1 Postfach CH-4002 Basel
Institute Arts and Design Education (IADE)
FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern SwitzerlandBasel Academy of Art and Design,
Institute Arts and Design Education (IADE)
Building: A 1.18Oslo-Strasse 3CH - 4142 Münchenstein near Basel
