Memorandum from the British Council
Questions 16-18 (Mr Touhig) The
number of new teaching centres opened since 2005, and the number
of planned new teaching centres. The location of each teaching
centre closed down, and the reasons behind each closure.
Since 2005 the British Council has opened a
new teaching centre in Tripoli (Libya), which is already delivering
strong impact and financial performance.
There are no new teaching centres currently
planned for 2007-08. The focus this year is instead on the development
of new business models for teaching, involving partnership arrangements
with UK or overseas organisations- a deliberate policy to keep
investment manageable and increase geographical/market spread
in successful locations. China and India are the high priority
countries for this approach.
Examples: branch in Seoul National University
(March 2008); two off-site centres in Milan one in a school, one
in a design college (in the last three years); new school based
branch in Hong Kong (about a year ago); large contract to teach
in a University in Rome (18 months ago); Egypt—Al Azhar
University (2007) (NB Grant funded). Partnership teaching YLs
in school satellites in Paris (expected start 2009).
Teaching Centre Closures
| Year
| Centres Closed | Reason
|
| 2005-06 | Nagoya and Kyoto in Japan (remaining open in Tokyo and Osaka);
Bologna in Italy (remaining open in Rome and Milan);
Varna in Bulgaria (remaining open in Sofia);
Kosice in Slovakia (remaining open in Bratislava);
Chittagong in Bangladesh (remaining open in Dacca).
| As part of a review of teaching operations which were neither delivering strategic impact nor financial returns.
|
| Dammam Men's Centre in Saudia Arabia
| Closed on security grounds (keeping the Women's Centre open, and maintaining Women's and Men's operations in Riyadh and Jeddah)
|
| St Petersburg | External pressure.
|
| 2006-07 | Tel Aviv | Delivering neither impact nor financial returns. The British Council refocused on its wider work in English through regional projects and networks.
|
| Istanbul | Security grounds.
|
| Moscow | External pressure.
|
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| 2007-08 | Budapest | Delivering neither impact nor financial returns, but are strengthening our wider work in English in Hungary and North and Central Europe.
|
| Baku, Azerbaijan | Following the loss of a business-critical corporate contract but are strengthening our overall English programme within the region
|
Questions 56-58 (Mr Burstow) The number of new contacts the Council makes each year, and if there are any figures on the potential number of contacts missed each year
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In 2007-08 the British Council had direct contact with 16
million people. As the National Audit Office report identifies,
we do not have a global Customer Relationship Management tool
so do not have central information on the numbers of new contacts
added to our databases around the world. We have established a
CRM pilot in China one of our priority regions to enable us to
develop a common approach. In China we had engagement with an
additional 2.3 million people in 2007-08.
Similarly we do not hold central information on missed contacts.
We do monitor customer service through quarterly mystery shopping
exercises and publish customer satisfaction scores in our annual
report. However, we recognise there is a need to improve customer
service standards and will be giving priority to achieving a measurable
improvement in the quality of service delivery throughout the
British Council through our Customer Service Excellence project.
Question 99 (Mr Davidson) The proportion of Indians the British
Council work with who could be classed as "rich" and
"poor."
The British Council teaches English to 6,500 students per
year in Delhi focusing on young professionals. This is a small
number, as internal analysis of the market for our products outside
Delhi suggest around 4.2 million could be interested. However
face-to-face teaching is only part of the English-language programme.
Our wider English-language activities are developed for,
and reach, the broader population, particularly schoolchildren.
A year ago we initiated a project to extend our English work on
a much larger scale to reach wider socio economic groups.
To date the British Council:
(i) has established a cascade teacher training programmes
in support of the ambitions of the 28 states to improve the level
of English in the state sector (four states engaged with us so
far). Through this programme, and through on-line resources for
teachers we aim to recruit "master trainers" who will,
in turn, train 750,000 teachers of English over the next five
years
(ii) is working in West Bengal—in partnership with the
State Government—with 150,000 school teachers and the number
of primary school children is 3.3 million. We expect to develop
materials for all five levels at primary school and therefore
it will involve a total of 15 million primary school children
by March 2009;
(iii) has started to look at how it can deliver lower-cost
language tuition in 2nd and 3rd tier cities. This is likely to
involve partnering with Indian entrepreneurs, and using Indian
teachers of English who are trained and qualified;
(iv) has responded to the need for better English in the recruitment
of employees into the ITES/BPO sector by offering consultancy
to those sectors on improving language testing, language improvement
and cultural awareness skills;
(v) is working in Andhra Pradesh with 60,000 high school teachers;
and
(vi) has put a Learn English Professional website, a British
Council global product, onto the Infosys website (a large Indian
IT company) for its 89,000 employees.
Questions 101-106 (Mr Davidson) Details of any British Council
work with Trade Unions overseas, and how many T1/T2s are involved
in Trade Union work?
The British Council has long established links with Trades
Unions in the UK and seeks Trades Union representation on its
programmes. For example, senior trades union members have attended
12 out of the 13 annual British-Italian politician and policy
maker conferences (known as Pontignano) since 1995.
Delegates have included Jack Dromey, Kay Carberry and Brendan
Barber. In addition, British Council Egypt, and the General Federation
of Trade Unions, offer Chevening scholarships for young Egyptians
to study at on the International Labour and Trade Union Studies
programme at Ruskin College.
Questions 95-97 (Mr Davidson) The number of senior managers
in the British Council who went to Oxford and Cambridge
20% (one of five) of the British Council's Executive Board
went to Oxford and Cambridge, and 25% (three out of 12) of its
regional directors.
16 July 2008
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