Earlier this year, on 20th April, the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, HE Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Martin Davidson, the Chief Executive of The British Council, which formalised an agreement for cooperation on educational and English language initiatives between the British Council and the Higher Colleges of Technology. Sheikh Nahyan also entertained the Chief Executive to lunch.

The MoU lays down the basis for the further development of collaboration between The British Council and the HCT that represents an enhanced commitment by the Council to the building of its already-strong relations with the Emirates.

The signing of the MoU took place during a two day visit by Davidson to the UAE when he also called on the Ministers of Culture, Youth and Community Development and of Education, and had discussions with senior representatives of key local cultural and educational organisations over a lunch hosted by the British Ambassador. After a Council-sponsored concert by virtuoso guitarist Eduardo Niebla’s trio at the Cultural Foundation the same evening, Davidson moved on to Dubai where he opened the British Council/Young Arab Leaders ‘Learning from the Future’ workshop on the morning of 21st April.

The HCT was well-represented at the Dubai workshop, and one of their number will be among a group of young leaders who will be attending the upcoming World Economic Forum in Sharm El Sheikh under the auspices of the British Council and YAL. The MoU is thus a reaffirmation of our already close ties with the Higher Colleges, and it adds to the range of formal relationships the British Council has with the higher education sector, including Zayed University and the UAE University.

The significance of this particular event is as much to do with how we are going to do things as what we are going to do. Since arriving in Abu Dhabi some twenty months ago, one of my jobs has been to review the British Council’s work in the UAE in the context of policy developments back in Britain and changes in the external environment. This MoU is a milestone in the development of our thinking, reinforcing, as it does, the key importance that we attach to working with partners, and indeed a renewed commitment to the UAE and the Gulf. As Martin Davidson mentioned during his visit, the Middle East and Gulf regions are high priority for the British Council. Our global funding decisions for the coming three years reflect this with a doubling of the grantin- aid over previous years. We want to maximise opportunities for cultural dialogue and exchange between the UK and the region, and in the UAE to engage with leaders and young people in new areas where we feel that Britain has something unique to offer. Of course, we’ll continue to teach English and offer access to British qualifications and education, but we also want to increase or work in emerging areas such as fashion and design, publishing and entrepreneurship, all of which are both key economic drivers and excellent vehicles for the exchange of ideas and experience. We also want to engage with people on their terms, more often than not through electronic and web-based media.

On the other hand, bricks and mortar and corporate headquarters are less of a priority - indeed in some ways a distraction (not to mention an increasing expense). A range of constraints around cost, security, health and safety, footprint, and even parking mean that the days of large dedicated centres for British Council activity are very much numbered in many locations. In Abu Dhabi, change driven by the ageing and exposed nature of our offices in Khalidiya means that we are having to face up to this at an early stage.

The closer working with partners is one of the solutions here. The bulk of the British Council’s space requirements are driven by teaching activity - for which demand has now outgrown the capacity of our current premises. With the spectacular investment in educational infrastructure by the Government in recent years, we’ve noticed that there are acres of state-of-the art classroom space lying idle in Abu Dhabi during the evenings and on Saturdays – just when we can make good use of it. A number of our partners, including HCT/CERT, have made it clear that we would be welcome to teach from their premises, and would appreciate both the income stream and the greater proximity to our services and expertise. The British Council is a recognised leader in teaching methodology, teacher training, and language assessment, and there is huge potential for collaboration with our various partners in these areas. The students of these institutions, tomorrow’s leaders, are also of course a natural audience for our cultural, educational and developmental programmes.

This is the sort of ‘win-win’ scenario the extent of which I’m sure in a couple of years will have us looking back and wondering why we stayed with the status quo for so long. The Higher Colleges, for example, have 16 state-ofthe- art campuses across the Emirates; Zayed University similarly has a number of locations and ambitious expansion plans; and Abu Dhabi University and IAT are also on the move. By working more closely with these powerful and well-placed players, the British Council will be able to extend its reach and impact very significantly.

So it’s time to bite the bullet. The model has been working well in Dubai for some time, and we’ve been piloting the new arrangements in rooms on the CERT technology park over the past couple of months, so we’re ready to scale up. At the beginning of July, we will move all our English classes off the current site in Khalidiya and resume teaching seamlessly (with our own teachers, methodology, and course materials) from HCT/ CERT premises. Shortly after moving our teaching, we will move our administrative offices to a new location towards Al Mushrif. Our students and stakeholders will be well-briefed, and arrangements will be in place to ease the transition for staff.

Change will always throw up new challenges of course. Without a single focal point for students and clients, we will have to work hard on maintaining our brand presence; we will need to support teachers and staff who will be working at multiple locations; and, above all, we will need to underpin our quality. I am confident that we will be able to do all of this and at the same time expand our activities and increase our impact. We will do so in close consultation with our partners so that there is a real mutuality and relevance to all our work.

Mutuality is, in fact, at the heart of the British Council’s mission, and where we work from is not the main issue. It’s who we work with and how we work with them that matters: to maintain a dialogue between key groups of influencers in Britain and the UAE; to increase respect and understanding; to deepen the appreciation of each other’s culture and achievements; and to educate our youth and nurture enlightened leaders. Our partners are key to this, and, in the relatively short time that I have been here, I have been happy to note the high level of support we enjoy from many parts of the educational and cultural communities, manifested in many ways but perhaps most strikingly through gestures such as Sheikh Nahyan’s gracious hospitality for Martin Davidson. We can’t be complacent, though, and, as the various Ministers made clear to us, the UAE expects us to work hard on the relationships and to match its ambition for growth and progress. This is a time of change for the British Council in Abu Dhabi, and we aim to use the momentum of the change constructively to live up to those expectations.