British Council: Building links through different programmes

Defined as the United Kingdom's international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations, the British Council founded in 1934, has helped to form solid links between people in the UK and in almost 110 other countries, in various ways.

Having functioned here since 1949, Sri Lanka is a classic example of its success. And Gill Westaway, the newly appointed Country Director Sri Lanka has many more plans in the pipeline.

The areas handled by the British Council range from English language training, education and exams, to library and information services, arts and culture programmes and developing partnerships and networks for social change. “For Sri Lanka, English training and education are top of the list," explains Gill.

She added that the high demand for quality learning of the English language, both for employment within the country, as well as overseas, was one of the first things she noticed about Sri Lanka.

Having been the Director of the British Council in Philippines recently, she has worked for the British Council since 1982, joining its Language Centre in Bogota, Colombia as an English teacher. She has worked in London over the past 20 years, developing the well known IELTS test. She was also involved in managing development projects in Kenya, and establishing a Teaching Centre in Indonesia as Deputy Director. "I've been in Sri Lanka for about two weeks, and it's interesting to observe the slight changes between Asians of different regions. But other than that, there aren't any significant changes I have had to adjust to," she said.

Apart from her interest in learning other languages, Gill enjoys travelling, reading, music and films.
The English language training facilities at the British Council function effectively both in Colombo and Kandy. What about plans to have more branches in other parts of the island? "It's more productive to channel funds into the two operating branches, rather than spending on new spaces and rents etc. It makes more sense to cover those areas through outreach programmes such as teacher training, which would have an impact on a larger scale,” she says.

Another interesting programme falling under English language training at the British Council, is a military communications project, which according to Gill, promotes a more inclusive approach. "This would help them go on overseas training and so on, but other than being just an English training course, it also covers communications, even enabling the military to learn the Tamil language," she said.

Education in the UK, is yet another key aspect handled by the British Council. Almost 26 percent of students studying abroad, study in the United Kingdom. "At present, there are about 1,800 Sri Lankans studying in the UK, but we want to bring it up to about 3000," said Gill, adding that education fairs help promote this cause. "A forthcoming project is to train agents so that they could encourage more students to seek education in the UK. But what we are concentrating on is the fact that all of these agents have to be of one professional standard,” she said.

The British Council also plans to work closely with the visa authorities, to ensure that the message going out regarding education in the UK, is the same.

With the British Council administering numerous British exams, they have over 16,000 students and professionals taking exams, such as the Ordinary Level, Advanced Level, IELTS and others. A new facility has been set up within the library to make the process more effective, and free reference library membership has been arranged for all those who register for exams through the British Council.

As a part of developing partnerships and networks for social change, British Council facilitates many young people oriented projects such as Dreams and Teams and Kids in Touch. Dreams and Teams a pilot project starting in Sri Lanka focusses on Learning through sport- cricket.

Almost 52 school link programmes function through the British Council as well, and about ten school heads from the UK visited Sri Lanka last week. "The key impression they got during their visit to local schools was the passion that Sri Lankan students have for learning. The importance given to education and books was something they were impressed with, considering that most kids in the UK take education for granted," she said.

According to Gill, there are still misconceptions regarding the United Kingdom, and breaking down these stereotypes is one of British Council's main aims. "When they think of the UK, most people still think of just the conservative side of things, for example the royal family. But what we want especially young people to realise is that while that is one aspect of the UK, there is also a modern side to it as well. So all we're saying is give contemporary UK a chance!" she said smiling.