The following examples illustrate the range of the British Council's programmes funded from its grant-in-aid. The examples reflect each of the Council's core subject areas: education, English language teaching, information, the arts, science and technology, and governance and human rights.

SUPPORTING EDUCATION REFORM IN RUSSIA

  1. Over the past five years, the Council has planned and supported a variety of long-term partnerships between the UK and Russia in education reform. The projects have dealt with aspects of school and further education identified by the Russians as priorities for reform, including management skills in education, competency based vocational training and English language testing. Once policy and delivery were shown to be successful, the projects were replicated on a much larger scale using Russian resources. This programme has enhanced the reputation of British education with education authorities and key professional communities throughout Russia, and has had a significant influence on policy development at the national and local level—a fact recognised by the forthcoming visit of the Minister of Education to the UK. It has also positioned the UK as a leading contender for World Bank funded education reform contracts.

STRENGTHENING ENGLISH TEACHING IN POLAND

  2. The political changes in 1989 led to an explosion of demand for English teachers in the Polish state education system. Using additional funding made available for its work in Central and Eastern Europe, the Council set up a partnership with the Ministry of Education to establish a sustainable English language teacher education system for state primary and secondary schools. A total of 18,500 teachers of English have been trained so far through the setting up of a network of 53 teacher training colleges and national team of in-service trainers, using British consultants, books and teaching materials. The colleges quickly gained a reputation for high quality training and later phases of the Council's projects have helped develop their capacity to access new sources of funding. The projects have also acted as springboards for other initiatives, including the introduction of mechanisms to establish and promote quality standards.

BUILDING A DEVELOPMENT INFORMATION PARTNERSHIP IN INDIA

  3. To address the problem on inadequate access to development information, the Council in India, together with One World Online (UK), is setting up an electronic gateway to development information (INDEV). The Council, with its experience in information work and reputation as a trusted intermediary, is bringing government departments, bilateral and multilateral agencies, and non-governmental organisations in the project. INDEV will publish development information relating to India on a web site and make it freely accessible to anyone from anywhere in the world. Besides holding databases of organisations, projects, key documents and development statistics, INDEV will publish a development newspaper on the web and initiate debate on development issues using an electronic discussion forum. INDEV will also help NGOs to publish information on the web, by providing training and hosting their web sites on INDEV server.

PROMOTING THE UK'S CREATIVE INDUSTRIES IN THE USA

  4. Improbable Theatre, a small-scale, innovative performing arts company, was completely unknown in the USA when the Council gave them a grant of £4,000 towards a run of performances in New York in January 1998. The run was timed to take place during APAP, the arts promoters conference held in New York each year. The show attracted over 70 promoters, was sold out and attracted brilliant reviews in the New York Times and the New York Post. It also secured the services of an American producer for Improbable Theatre. This led to a 40-performance run in San Diego in August 1998 and a further five city UK tour in January 1999, netting a total of £85,000 in fees. The company is now booked to tour two future shows and a third show, Coma, has been co-commissioned by the Wexner Center in Columbus, Ohio. In this way, using modest seedcorn funding, the Council is able to introduce new British work to a wider audience overseas.

SHOWCASING BRITISH SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN CHINA

  5. A one month Sino-British science and technology festival took place in China in the autumn of 1998. Organised by the Ministry of Science and Technology in conjunction with the Council, the closing ceremonies were presided over by the Prime Minister, Tony Blair. Seminars and exhibitions covered such topics as the commercialisation of renewable energy, advanced manufacturing, clean coal research, science policy and management, quality control in traditional Chinese medicine, and a radio-astronomy. A dedicated satellite link was inaugurated to link the Chinese and UK academic computer networks, facilitating information exchange between universities and colleges in the two countries. In the public appreciation of science sector, a thought-provoking fashion exhibition, in which each garment is inspired by a science theme proved very popular, as did the Shooting Stars exhibition of David Malin's astronomical photographs.

WORKING TO IMPROVE WOMEN'S RIGHTS IN NIGERIA

  6. Three years ago, while Nigeria was still under the Abacha regime, the Council organised a series of workshops in Lagos, Kaduna and Enugu for women in public life. The workshops were conducted by Lesley Abdela, a member of the Council's Board and campaigner for women's rights. Over 100 women attended, with participants coming from all states. The workshops demonstrated ways of empowering and mobilising women. Afterwards, each woman returned to her village and trained a further 100 women. These were called the 100 Groups. Ms Abdela returned to Nigeria last year and found that over 300 groups had been set up, reaching some three million women. The training has empowered the women to liaise with village elders to improve the treatment of widows, who are often subject to abuse following the death of their husbands.