2. How has British Council been reaching out to students during the pandemic to tell them about the courses in UK universities?
Traditionally, we speak to the students face-to-face to tell them about the courses and the best universities they can apply to. But with COVID around, we have been reaching out to them online. We organised two virtual education fairs in the month of August and December. More than 2,500 students took part in these fairs and over 47 international universities were present. Not just the Management institutions, there were universities specialised in Arts and Humanities giving way for students to learn what they want. At the same time, the education fair included some Visa specialists to provide information on staying abroad, rules, regulations and other formalities. It was a good opportunity for students and parents to understand all this, especially if they are looking to study abroad in the next academic year. This is the time students plan, prepare their CV and start choosing colleges. You will be surprised to know that 65 per cent of postgraduates and 59 per cent of graduates tell us that they want to study in the UK and there is no change in that decision after COVID. Interestingly, Bengaluru sends the largest number of students to the UK. Karnataka stands in second place when it comes to providing jobs for UK alumni. Hence, we can say that Bengaluru is the most cosmopolitan city in India. More than English and education, the city attracts a diverse range of people.
3. Can you tell us about the international collaborations that have happened recently?
Our recent bilateral programme is the UK-India Education Research Initiative (UKIERI). 62 such engagements have happened with Karnataka with ten ongoing relationships with reputed institutions. Currently, there are four active UKIERI partnerships between HEIs in Karnataka and the UK. Students from Manipal University, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Indian Institute of Science and Indian Institute of Management Bangalore were able to pursue their research in Material Science, Climate Research, Human Health, Material Science, Science/Technology-Engineering, Innovative Construction Materials and Development Studies, Management and Finance in the UK. Meanwhile, UKIERI is developing programmes that meet the priorities and needs of both countries and bring about a systemic change in the education, skills and leadership sectors of both India and the UK. So far, under UKIERI, there have been 1,057 institutional partnerships, 25,000 academic exchanges and 2,000 research publications.
4. Can you tell us in what way British Council will prepare college students through this MoU?
One of the needs placed by the Karnataka State Council for Higher Education is training college students. While we have not prepared the curriculum for Karnataka students, British Council has done extensive work in this regard in other states. Students' needs differ from one another, hence, it is important to come up with a customised curriculum or programme. In other states, we do a youth analysis and we assess the needs and provide a robust scaffolding system for the teachers or faculty members. One of our largest projects, Tejas, introduced in Maharashtra schools, includes handholding, training and providing of resource materials to teachers to learn English. We have also trained 5,800 teachers in Puducherry not just in English but also in how to engage children in online classes. These teachers can take back the training and lessons they have learnt to their schools. In the last decade, we have trained one million teachers in the English language.
