THE future of the British Council is under threat worldwide after the UK government cut its funding and called in a £200 million loan.
One of the first casualties to the institution, which was founded in 1934 to promote British culture, language and education abroad, has been its iconic Madrid headquarters.
The imminent sale follows the offloading of the British Council School in Madrid, set up in 1940 and sold last year for €57 million.
The iconic institution is facing the sale of its Palacete building at the end of March next year with no clear relocation plan in place, leaving 320 staff members fearing for their jobs.
Cries of ‘El British no se vende‘ (the British is not for sale) echoed through the Salamanca district as workers and supporters protested to save the historic building from the government axe on Wednesday.
Around 5,000 students pass through the centre each year to learn English and forge cultural ties with the UK, while the wider expat community relies on the Council as a pillar of British soft power.
Stuart Anderson, who has worked at the Madrid site for 20 years, expressed his deep concern over the threat to the facility.
“We have 35 classrooms here, a library and all the teaching resources we need,” he told The Olive Press.
“They say we can rent another space, but it won’t be the same.
“We’ve spent decades building this place into what it is today, and now it could all be lost.”
Another staff member, Fatima, who has taught at the facility for 30 years, said the uncertainty is taking a heavy toll on the workforce.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen to our jobs, whether we’ll still have them next week or next year,” she said.
“It’s really frightening for all of us.”
But the crisis extends far beyond the Spanish capital, with the popular ‘auxiliares de conversacion‘ teaching assistant programme also under severe threat.
The scheme, which sees thousands of young Brits work in bilingual schools across Spain, has already been cut in Andalucia.
Rumours are now circulating that the Valencian Community and other regions could be next to face the cull.
The drastic measures come as the global institution faces the looming repayment of a £200 million government loan taken out during the pandemic.
It has also been hit by severe budget cuts from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), which traditionally provides grants covering around 15% of the organisation’s total income.
Established in 1934 to promote British culture and language abroad, the British Council is now considering shutting down operations in 30 to 40 of the 100 countries it currently operates in.
In response to the cuts, the Council’s chief executive Scott McDonald said the British Council could ‘disappear’ in a decade.
McDonald warned that the UK risks undermining its global soft power at a time when countries such as China and Russia are investing heavily in expanding their own cultural influence overseas.
China is investing heavily into its overseas education institution the Confucius Institute and Russia, meanwhile, has launched a scheme to promote Russian language across Africa.
McDonald says that without the British Council, ‘it leaves a vacuum in those 30 or 40 countries.’
“There’s no British Council there, promoting the UK and our culture, our education, and so that vacuum gets filled – maybe by allies of ours but maybe also by some non-allies,” he continued.
“It opens up for Putin’s Russia to move into these places to teach language and promote culture and capture the minds of young people.”
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