Peter Brown, the director of the British Council in Ethiopia and Ato Netsanet Demewoz, the British Council Ethiopia’s Team Leader for the Quality Education Strategic Support Programme (QESSP), were received for a private audience by His Excellency, Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonen on April 2017. The purpose of the meeting was to brief the Deputy Prime Minister on current British Council activities and hear about government’s plan in areas of interest to the British Council.
Deputy Prime Minister Demeke is a Chevening scholar and a formal Education Minister who had a first-hand engagement with the British Council.
In the course of the hour long discussion the British Council team presented the range of services provided by the organization and His Excellency appreciated the British Council as ‘a flexible organisation which aligns its programmes with the country’s priorities’ and reflected on the 75 years of association as ‘a long standing relationship with good legacy’.
After the presentation, the Deputy Prime Minister emphasised that the support provided by the British Council to ensure quality education should remain a priority. He said that as part of this endeavour, more effort should be exerted towards supporting high quality English language teaching at all levels.
His Excellency also recognised that supporting English language education is key and currently, benchmarking the UK education systems is a focus area for consideration.
When concluding the meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonen, commended the British Council to be ‘a real brand for partnership and long term relationship’.