British Council
From The ICAL TEFL wiki
The British Council is an organisation set up to promote British culture around the world. They have offices in 110 countries and terretories and are often a useful source of information on teaching in a particular country.
A significant part of their work involves teaching English and many British Council offices have schools attached where they teach English to local people or are involved in teacher training. In some cases the British Council also administers examinations such as the Cambridge English exams.
There are 70 British Council Teaching Centres in 53 countries. It taught 1,189,000 class hours to 300,000 learners in 2006-2007. In examination centres around the world, the British Council administers 1.5 million UK examinations (not just in English though) to over one million candidates each year and this is set to grow.
English for peace is an important and growing element of British Council English language work in Africa and other parts of the world. It works to improve the English language skills of military personnel assigned to international peacekeeping duties through the Peacekeeping English Project which is helping prepare approximately 50,000 military and police service personnel in 28 countries worldwide for peacekeeping mission duties. The Peacekeeping English Project is managed by the British Council and funded by the UK government global conflict prevention fund.
The council employs many teachers most of whom are highly qualified and experienced. To work for the council the minimum qualifications are:
- a certificate level TEFL qualification
- education to degree level or equivalent qualification
- at least two years' post EFL qualification fulltime relevant TEFL experience
- knowledge of contemporary UK
- native English speaker or equivalent ability
- evidence of specific behavioural competencies
Criticism
The BC competes locally with private language schools which often complain about the fact that the BC is subsidised competition. Although the teaching arm makes money, the BC tends to focus its resources on countries where it can make the most money, shutting down libraries in less profitable areas and closing its teaching division altogether in some places.
Also, since the BC is part of the UK government it is sometimes the target of attacks against personnel and property in some countries such as Greece and Russia.
