31st March 2014 Washington DC, USA
Diaspora – from Greek, “scattering, dispersion” Identity can be a complicated thing. What does it mean to be part of a diaspora? Do people always carry the old country with them or do they gradually leave it behind? You could read Zadie Smith or Jhumpa Lahiri for some answers. This isn’t a fictional question for me. Over […]
24th March 2014 Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei
We have another guest blogger this month. Dr Paryono is the Deputy Director for Professional Affairs cum Research Specialist at the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation Regional Centre For Vocational and Technical Education and Training (SEAMEO VOCTECH) based in Brunei. Its workshop on the Integration of Transferable Skills in TVET Curriculum, Teaching-Learning, and Assessment […]
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21st March 2014 Havana, Cuba
In a week when Russian aggression in Eastern Europe has brought back memories of the Cold War, it seems appropriate to write about Sir Winston Churchill, the great British statesman who coined the term ‘the iron curtain’. Churchill’s inspiring, determined, brilliant leadership during the Second World War is known to all. Less well-known are his […]
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12th March 2014 Brasilia, Brazil
Today Alisson Braga, one of our Brazilian Chevening Scholars currently in the UK, will take over the blog. He attended an event organized by the FCO and HSBC bank in London last week. His words show not only how special foreign students are, but how the Chevening Scholars’ experience in the UK goes beyond the […]
11th March 2014 Havana, Cuba
I spent much of last week in Isla de la Juventud, one of the many hundreds of islands that make up Cuba. It’s called Juventud because thousands of youths – Cuban and foreign – studied there in boarding schools in the 1980s. Out of the 100 schools that were planned to be built sixty-two were […]
17th February 2014 Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei
Walking around the Education UK Exhibition with my British Council colleagues, there was a real buzz in the air. Hundreds of prospective students were firing questions at representatives from 43 British universities and educational institutions. It’s our flagship education event of the year. A one stop shop to get answers about studying and living in […]
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23rd January 2014 Washington DC, USA
“Is it just me or has everything shrunk?” That was the principal thought running through my head on January 15th as I walked into my old high school – the Inverness Royal Academy – for the first time in 23 years. The Head of the Economics Department there, Ian Stewart, was the first person to […]
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17th January 2014 Beirut, Lebanon
One of the great frustrations of diplomacy is that results are hard to quantify. If, for example, a new government is at last formed in Lebanon, we will be hard pressed to say to what extent our encouragement, the hours on the road, in planes and in meetings, contributed. So when a project with direct, […]
30th December 2013 Havana, Cuba
In July 2011 in a ‘Declaration on Bilateral Co-operation’ the British and Cuban governments agreed that human rights are a ‘priority for co-operation’. Both countries have recently been elected by the UN General Assembly to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) for a three year term beginning on 1 January 2014. The HRC is the […]
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19th December 2013 Washington DC, USA
In my lifetime, the rise of digital communications has changed nearly every aspect of our daily activities. And in foreign policy, the world is changing as a result of digital’s ability to give a voice to so many. We have seen social media play a huge role in regime change in the Arab world, we have […]
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