Working with our partners we reach millions of people worldwide. Here are some of our success stories.
Boosting Romania’s rural tourism industry
The British Council Skills for Employability team in Romania has been working in partnership with national government agencies, the educational sector and employers to boost the employability of tourism students through developing high quality, relevant training and qualifications and learning resources. They have been focussing on rural and agritourism, which encourage visitors to enjoy Romanian country life by staying on farms and small holdings and taking part in a range of outdoor activities. Skills for Employability influenced reform of the national agritourism curriculum and engaged partners from various fields - National Centre for Technical and Vocational Education (NVET), the Ministry of National Education, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Sector Skills Council for Hospitality and Tourism Romania and members of the National Association of Rural, Ecological and Cultural Tourism.
The programme demonstrates a number of significant outcomes and successes:
- improved relations between government, the education sector and industry have influenced curriculum reform meeting the needs of a changing economy
- increased teaching and learning of English in vocational classes
- introduced new ways of collaborative working between education authorities
- development of support materials in management, entrepreneurship, operations and marketing (available as downloads from the National Vocational Centre site, ready for the next academic year)
With these strong foundations firmly in place, the British Council is confident that the project is fully sustainable and provides a template that can be used to deliver further curriculum reform.
By working with a UK expert and a team of TEFL teachers, we also developed high quality, specialised units and support materials to complement the revised tourism curricula. This spin off project has been approved by the Ministry of National Education and accredited by NVET.
"EART (n.b English for Agri and Rural Tourism] has been the most powerful learning experience I have been through in my profession. I can now write classroom materials, I am a better teacher and I feel I can really help my students in their future career."
[L.C., teacher of English in a Technical Vocational College]
Connecting Classrooms
Connecting Classrooms was part of a global project which built lasting partnerships between groups of schools in the UK and in over 60 countries around the world. The aim of the programme was to achieve culturally inclusive schools. It was designed in consultation with education bodies, practitioners and policy makers around the world.
In Romania, the project was developed in 16 schools in the counties of Arad and Suceava. The schools worked in partnership with schools in Hungary, France and the UK. The topic of their project was ‘Olympic Values – Excellence for all expressed through sport and creative arts as a way towards inclusion’ in 2010-11 and 'Inclusive Schools' in 2011-13. Teachers and school leaders were supported to develop international school partnerships and integrated them into school curricula and broader strategic plans. In this way they enriched young people's education, enhanced their own professional development and contributed to the achievement of the whole-school democratisation goal. The project was delivered in partnership with the Ministry of National Education.
"These sessions made me think deeper about all the problems our world is facing and I hope every young leader will do more with everything they learned. I expected to gain strength and actually, I feel stronger and would like to be more active."
[O.S., young leader, Arad, Romania]
FameLab
We are dedicated to providing young people with opportunities for skills development, and the FameLab competition is one of the ways we achieve it! FameLab is an international competition of science communication organised by the British Council and the UK Cheltenham Science Festival in over 24 countries in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, America and South Africa.
The 2013 FameLab national finalist, Vlad Alexandru Lukacs, learned how to communicate effectively about science through the Master Class training session and competed in the international final of the Cheltenham Science Festival in the UK, from 4-9 June 2013. He was also awarded with a special prize for the best technology project by Intel for his presentation 'What does wireless mean?'.
Main partner: Intel