The Chevening Scholarships

For my readers with Ukrainian, Russian, Moldavian, Azerbaijani and Belorussian IP addresses, assuming you are not all Brits hiding out in such wonderful places (and I know you are not as I have seen some of you on Facebook and VKontakte), some of you very bright young things my wish to consider the Chevening Scholarships.

If you fancy doing a post-grad study and the thought of doing it in the UK fills you with desire, then you need to get your applications submitted prior to 16th December.  You can apply here.

If you have not already done so, you will need to sort out your IELTS certification which grades you standard of English.  UK universities seem to require varying scores on this test ranging from 5.5 to 7.  Your local British Council office will know who provides any preparatory courses in your regions (I hope).

Certainly for my Ukrainian Odessa based readers I can point you in the direction of a school that does just that amongst its numerous English language based offerings.  I do not have any connection to the school in case you are wondering.

It would be such a nice thought to know that one of you dear readers manages to get such a scholarship despite such limited availability.  Depending upon where you go, we could end up being in the same alumni.

Good luck to all who decide to apply, in the meantime I return to the task of renewing my membership of Chatham House.

Cultural leadership or masked coercive policy?‏

I have much discussed the overt and covert roles of NGOs here over the years.

Here is the British Council looking for the next generation of “cultural leaders” in Ukraine and offering leadership training, funding to the tune of £3000 for personal development and perusing the written plans of said applicants with “cultural leadership” aspirations.

From a UK perspective, of course, it is most wise to familiarise with and mentor where possible the next generation of Ukrainian “cultural leaders”. To help shape and forge strong bonds with the next Ukrainian people of influence from an early developmental position is exactly what the UK should be doing.

In the world of leadership and international relations, personal relationships go a very long way when it comes to the ease of access and negotiation with another nation.

From a Ukrainian point of view, on one hand it may turn out to be quite beneficial in the future to have the same easy access and personal connections with those determining policy in the UK, but on another, depending upon the transparency of the selection process employed by the UK Foreign Office via the facade of the British Council NGO (a budget that is the responsibility of the Foreign Office), there will be an acute awareness of the ability to be rather partisan in selection and therefore coercive to certain interests.

Of course you would expect HM Gov to have an agenda otherwise there is no real point to the exercise. Without an agenda, they may as well pay the fees for my next Open University educational upgrade in one of the political sciences (P,P or E to be exact, starting in a few months if they ever get around to setting the fees for overseas students that is) and then use their influence to shoe-horn me into a Ukrainian NGO in which they have a particular interest.

From my perspective a good trade-off of course. It is actually quite difficult to get actively involved in a NGO even when you want to. It’s even harder to get involved in EU or UN bodies despite what would appear to be obvious benefits to them ostensibly based on costs and location . We will see, for example, if anyone asks me or any resident foreigner I know, to act as an OSCE observer for the next 2012 parliamentary elections here in Odessa, or whether the taxpayer will be asked to pay for a different foreigner with a far worse linguistic ability (thus needing additional funds for an interpreter) to be flown here, accommodated and then flown out again.

Which is the most effective use of EU taxpayers money? – Exactly, so the chances of that happening are similar to the hole in my derriere disappearing overnight!

Anyway, returning to the point, whilst this is quite an overt and seemingly well intentioned endeavor (and it quite possibly is just that), there is of course, depending upon the transparency of the selection process, the ability for rather darker motives in the long-term, as anyone excelling within this sponsored programme will very likely become a prominent figure either regionally or nationally in Ukraine over the next 10 years.

One has to recognise though that there is no neutral action in foreign policy. Even inaction can be something other than neutral depending upon the circumstances. I could and maybe should go on to explain that further, but it becomes quite an academic argument and this post would turn into more a dissertation/thesis than flippant commentary you are used to.

Maybe I should create another section called “It’s all really quite academic….” and take a layman’s meander into policy in clear and simple English, but the amount of research and reading required would mean sporadic and lengthy entries. What do you think?

As it happens, I am all in favour of this UK endeavor, even if the long-term motives are somewhat more opaque and coercive than they appear prima facie. Then I would be, as I have one foot firmly planted in Ukraine and the other in the UK. It is in my personal interest to have and encourage top-class bilateral relations between both nations and between Odessa as a region and the UK for that matter whether it be with the leadership of today or that of the next generation.

The less I have to explain the more nefarious or opaque actions of the UK when confronted about them, the better it is for me. Like so many in society, issues judged separately and in the short-term rather than in the context of the bigger picture over the medium/long-term.

So, if there are any fledgling Ukrainian “cultural leaders” reading amongst my Ukrainian followers, click on the above link and apply. If you need help with the application or working on your personal progression plan, leave a comment. All comments are screened by me before publication, so if you do not want your comment/interest released for public consumption and would prefer a more confidential arrangement, mention it when making contact with the blog.

If there is one thing I am more than capable of, it is writing dry, strategic, technically sound English for the corporate and government machines of the UK and EU. Now there’s an offer you don’t get every day!

Know you own website – British Council and IELTS

Well yesterday whilst being fitted with new face furniture to aid the ability to read, the good woman and her friend unbeknown to me, decided to descend upon the British Council office at 5 Fantana in Odessa.

The reason they went, IELTS. This is a system accepted by UK schools and universities grading the knowledge of English for a foreign student. It has entered the head of our boy (if 16 years old still counts as a boy) and the good woman’s friend’s youngest daughter that they wish to go to university in the UK.

Our boy has decided that he would be rather partial to studying at the LSE whilst the daughter of a friend wants to do a BA (Hons) in Photography at Portsmouth University. As both are 16 years old, it is some years away yet and both are soldiering on at school in Odessa until they reach 18.

The “Rule of P” (Planning and preparation prevents p*ss poor performance) being foremost in these mothers minds, they duly headed to the only British NGO in Odessa remotely directly connected to Britain, IELTS and promoting all things British (including education, a major source of revenue to the UK when it comes to legitimate foreign students).

My good lady knows the lady who runs the British Council in Odessa (the rather wonderful Lyudmila Tatsenko upon whom this tale has no reflection) as she has been present when the good woman and I have met with the luminaries of HM Embassy Ukraine on several occasions here.

After a brief exchange of pleasantries with Lyudmila, the good woman and friend where directed towards a woman called Irena who “looks after” education for the British Council in Odessa. It soon became apparent that the British Council only conduct the IELTS tests and do not run preparatory courses for potential examinees. At lest that is what Irena told the good woman and friend.

Further more, she did not know anybody who did run preparatory IELTS courses in Odessa. The good woman and friend duly left the British Council rather crest-fallen as failing any IELTS examination puts pay to their offspring’s aspirations of a British university education and one imagines that to score highly enough on an IELTS examination for a British university is not going to be a simple accomplishment. Furthermore, the good woman herself wants to do a Master’s on-line via a British university and one suspects will have to do the IELTS as well.

Anyway, I return home with new (and rather nice) reading glasses, to then be told of their expedition and unsatisfactory outcome. Finding it rather difficult to believe that the only British NGO specifically tasked with promoting Britain (and British education) had failed so miserably to offer anything other than the IELTS examination (at the cost of UAH 1500) and not even a smidgen of other assistance, I donned new reading spectacles and pulled up the British Council website.

Lo and behold! – What did I find, if not a free on-line British Council 30 hour IELTS preparation course which had not been mentioned during the 30 minutes the good woman and friend had pressed the British Council for help! Indeed a good start although I felt that 30 hours is hardly enough to prepare my boy for an examination that will have considerable influence on his future when it comes to where he will go to university.

New spectacles still affixed to my nose, I then proceeded to delve through the hundreds of business cards collected during my years here and began to telephone the English language schools run by Brits in Odessa in search of a particular chap I had met but who’s name I could not recall but distinctly remembered he had told me he carried out preparatory IELTS courses. Within a matter of minutes, one of the better (or at least legal, all native tongued teachers having Work Permits and IM-1 Visa’s sponsored by the school) did indeed do an IELTS preparation course. It was indeed the school of the chap I was trying to locate.

This particular school is run by a young chap who comes from Hull University by graduate background and whom I met whilst in the company of the luminaries from UK Embassy when visiting Odessa. Needless to say, if I met him at such an event, so did the people from the British Council in Odessa (as they are always present for group meetings and group hugs) and I seemed to recall he mentioned he provided an IELTS preparation course. (The eyesight maybe fading but the memory is not……at least not yet)

Notwithstanding not mentioning or knowing the British Council offers 30 hours of free IELTS preparation free and on-line, you would think in a city as small as Odessa and with no more than 100 British people living and working in it (at most) and even fewer running English language schools or teaching in them, it is not particularly difficult to make follow up telephone calls from exchanged business cards at UK Embassy sponsored Brit gatherings to find what the schools actually offer said Brits own/run or work at.

As there is at least one (there maybe more) British owned school in Odessa offering IELTS preparation courses for an examination the British Council in Odessa conducts, you would think they would know about it and also promote it to people like my good lady and her friend prepared to invest £60,000 and more into their children’s education at UK universities……if they can pass the IELTS course with a suitably high grade.

You come to expect Ukrainian institutions to offer little help and that you will have to do all the detective work, but you expect the British institutions (particularly those promoting Britain and paid for by the British tax payer) to be a font of all knowledge when it comes to their locality and businesses that possess a synergy to the ultimate services it provides.

No? Times have changed and the UK is not the UK I remember? Things are not that “joined-up”? Very well, but you would at least expect them to know what is on their own website!