<p>Mr. Mark Howard, Country Director, British Council Egypt, was NileFM's Guest On "The Big Breakfast" and he told us all about the upcoming 90th anniversary of the British Council.&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>Can you tell us more about the British Council?</strong></p>
<p>We&rsquo;re an organization that basically makes friends for the UK, it&rsquo;s about building connections.</p>
<p>We work in English language, education, arts, and culture, so they&rsquo;re pretty cool areas, and they&rsquo;re really about how you can build connections between people overseas in different countries, and how you can get a connection with the UK.</p>
<p>And although we&rsquo;re quite old, 90 years old now, I like to feel that we are young in terms of the people we work with.</p>
<p><strong>You&rsquo;ve worked all over the world for the British Council, how does it differ between different countries?</strong></p>
<p>I always say when you walk into a British Council it always smells, tastes, and feels the same, whichever country you&rsquo;re in there&rsquo;s something there, and it&rsquo;s interesting because most of the people who work for the British Council are not British, most of them are locally recrutied where we are, and I think that gives us a real sort of understanding, cause that&rsquo;s the important thing, how do you understand the context where you are.</p>
<p>So I think the context changes a lot because all countries are different, but actually what we do is the same.</p>
<p>We try to promote those areas of English language, education, arts, and culture, so there&rsquo;s a lot that&rsquo;s the same, but the context is always different, and that&rsquo;s what I love about my job, is that you get to see different cultures, different people, but I suppose fundamentally we all want the same, we want a future, we want opportunities for our children, and in a sense that&rsquo;s also what we are about, how can we support young people to have a better life.</p>
<p><strong>The British Council has been in Egypt since 1938, What has the British Council changed in terms of its approach during that time? &nbsp;</strong></p>
<p>Egypt was the very first country overseas where the British Council ever opened, so of all the countries in the world that anybody could&rsquo;ve chosen Egypt was the first one, that&rsquo;s what really makes it special.</p>
<p>So now we&rsquo;re celebrating 90 years, for the first 6 or 7 years we were only in the UK, so the first overseas office was opened here in Cairo, so I think that&rsquo;s really special, and I feel privileged now to follow that long line.</p>
<p>It&rsquo;s something that we&rsquo;re really proud of, that of all the places that the British government could&rsquo;ve chosen, it chose Egypt.</p>
<p>I think what we&rsquo;ve done in that time hasn&rsquo;t changed at all, but I think how we do it changed enormously. Coming back to culture, language, and education, we did that 90 years ago, and we do exactly the same now, but of course, we've got digital, we used to have big libraries and now we don&rsquo;t, the way we teach has completely changed with all the technology that&rsquo;s there.</p>
<p>So I suppose how we&rsquo;ve done it I think has changed completely, but what we do is exactly the same and I think that&rsquo;s something quite powerful.</p>
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<p><strong>The British Council works with individuals but it also works with companies to help them promote themselves and evolve, can you tell us more about that?</strong></p>
<p>Partnerships are really key to what we do, so we work with the government here, we work with the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Higher Education, and Ministry of Culture.</p>
<p>We also work with private companies, we might work with individuals, so it&rsquo;s a whole range of people really.</p>
<p>We've just sent 10 scholars from Al-Azhar to Bournemouth, and for them that&rsquo;s a big experience, to have the opportunity to see what it&rsquo;s like in the UK, and I think they were really struck by the diversity of the UK as well, and one of our goals is to break down misconceptions.</p>
<p><strong>Can you tell us more about the 90th-anniversary celebration?</strong></p>
<p>We&rsquo;re doing quite a lot in the UK, so a lot of it is about focusing on young people, bringing young people together, we&rsquo;ve done various campaigns around influencers, trying to get 90 influencers from around the world.</p>
<p>The fact that we&rsquo;re in 110 countries, we are trying to always get that diversity of views from Asia, from Latin America, from North Africa, and the Middle East.</p>
<p>A lot of it is about bringing young people together, sharing their experiences and their voices, so a big part of our celebration is really about the people we work with.</p>
<p><strong>You talked earlier about trying to understand the culture of every single country that the British Council is based in, how do you engage with the culture of the 110 countries that the British Council is based in?</strong></p>
<p>What I love about the British Council is the people who work for us, and most of these people are based in the countries where we are.</p>
<p>I am very lucky as a director, I go around, I change countries every 3-4 years, so I have to learn new languages, new cultures, it&rsquo;s quite tough but you&rsquo;re always supported by experts who are from that country.</p>
<p>In our office here in Egypt we&rsquo;ve got some incredible people, who are Egyptian and understand Egypt, but they also have worked with the British Council.</p>
<p><strong>The British Council is known for offering English courses, but does it offer university degrees?</strong></p>
<p>We are well-known for the English language and we teach English language in our centers around Cairo, Alexandria, and across the country.</p>
<p>But we don&rsquo;t offer degrees, the British Council doesn&rsquo;t offer degrees, universities are what will issue degrees and here in Egypt there are a number of UK universities, like the University of Hertfordshire in the new capital.</p>
<p>So there are ways you can get a UK degree here in Egypt, of course, some people are lucky enough to go to the UK and be able to study, but increasingly there are chances to do UK degrees here in Egypt, and we are talking every week to new UK universities who are keen to come here to Egypt and work alongside Egyptian partners.</p>
<p><strong>Can you give us more information on the IELTS exam and how to register and prepare?</strong></p>
<p>IELTS is another big thing that we do, and this is the exam that can help you to go and study in the UK or it can be about maybe living in another country.</p>
<p>You can go to our website and reach for customer service or you can contact the call center, and they will give you the information.</p>
<p>And good luck if you have to do IELTS, it&rsquo;s a tough exam but it&rsquo;s a really good and important one which will demonstrate your level of English and we will be really happy to support you in that.</p>
<p><strong>Where is the best place to go to find more information about the British Council in Egypt?</strong></p>
<p>They can come along to our office in Agouza, they can find us on social media, they can find us online at <a href="https://www.britishcouncil.org.eg/">www.britishcouncil.org.eg</a>, and our customer service people would be really happy to answer any questions.</p>

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