As the cuts deepen at home, not all public bodies are feeling the pinch. The British Council in Sri Lanka is having a refurbishment, and we’re not just talking about a paint and carpet job; this one is costing £3 million.
“The premises project involves a brand new state-of-the-art library, a new multi-purpose auditorium, an integrated customer services centre, and refurbished classrooms amongst other improvements. “
This will help the British Council to peel more money off the locals. As it says on the BC Sri Lanka website:
“Membership of the British Council represents great value for money. Where else can you improve your prospects and enrich your life for as little as 5 rupees a day?... Belonging to the British Council can give a person a competitive edge that can only be gained from being a part of the British Council family.“
We have, in fact, heard about this particular branch of the “family” on this blog before – we just didn’t name it then. But it was in precisely this British Council centre that our inside reporter Ian Pennington came across so much that was disturbing about IELTS arrangements. Worse than that was the British Council’s response to reports about lack of compliance at the centre; because the British Council owns the IELTS test, teaches for the IELTS test, administers the IELTS test and monitors itself for compliance with its own rules, it doesn’t really need to get things right. Because if things go wrong, who’s looking, and who’s going to do anything about it? Ian gave us more information later.
This is just one way the "United Kingdom's international organisation" makes loads of money in places like Sri Lanka so that, armed with all their subsidies and privileges from the taxpayer (who for all we know might even have paid for the building in Sri Lanka in the first place), British Council officers turn a blind eye to poor or dishonest practice, while they travel first class, eat in fancy restaurants, play with Lego, and whizz around the Eye all at the taxpayers’ expense, and still spend millions on refurbishment so they can persuade more locals that they can buy a competitive edge and enrich their lives as they cough up more rupees to join the British Council “family”. I am surely not alone in finding this nauseating as well as outrageous.
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