In confidence
separate cultural premises in Moscow: the target is to relocate by 1991. Progress has been slower in establishing British information and study centres in Soviet institutes but the target to establish at least two study centres by 1992/93 remains.
7.7 £0.75 million additional government grant funds are allocated to the Soviet Union from 1990/91 for separate premises. Should negotiations not reach a stage to make implementation immediately viable, the funds will be redeployed non-recurrently to other projects within the region. A further £0.07 million will extend links and exchanges work, enabling at least four further institutional links, supported by twenty training visits in rapidly developing subject areas such as environmental science, materials distribution and commercial education. While this will take activity in the Soviet Union to a level more likely to make a significant British impact on educational and other reforms, it will not keep pace with opportunities being generated, particularly in the republics where the clamour for reform and assistance from the West is increasingly insistent. £0.75 million will be sought recurrently from 1991/92 to provide a rapid British response, particularly in Soviet republics moving towards autonomy.
7.8 A total of £0.5 million additional funding was allocated to the rest of Eastern Europe in 1989/90. First-year achievements include:
• 2 new university-based English teaching centres in Poland and 1 in Hungary
• 5 new English teaching posts in Czechoslovak and Hungarian universities
•
training for 28 Czechoslovak and East German business managers, co-financed with the partner countries
major modern music tours to Romania and GDR
• 2 new libraries/reading rooms in Poland and 1 ready to open in Bulgaria
• 120 additional exchanges outside the CXP in GDR. The scope to build on these initiatives became immense during 1989/90; the Council intends to budget for much faster developments during the next four years than planned in CP2.
7.9 In Hungary, there is immediate opportunity to establish a British cultural centre. £1 million from non-recurrent new money will contribute towards the purchase of property in Budapest for this purpose during 1990. This will enable the establishment of a pilot DTO, and provide modern cultural and information facilities to complement and support the needs of a range of British projects directed at economic, educational and political development. Additional funds will be sought for premises projects in other parts of Eastern Europe.
7.10 Two major development programmes of activity for Eastern Europe will be initiated in 1990, in line with CP2. £0.15 million recurrently will be invested in an English Language Teaching Contacts Scheme (ELTECS), to extend British influence through language training and stimulate interest in British educational goods and services. Plans for extending links and information programmes in Eastern Europe will be implemented, using £0.23 million of the new money recurrently. Additionally, by redeployment from lower priorities in Europe, a further recurrent £0.035 million will be found in 1990/91, rising to £0.05 million in 1991/92, to accelerate expansion in the GDR; and £0.065 million will be redeployed recurrently to attract higher-qualified English language lecturers to Council-recruited posts in Hungary, and so raise the quality of British input.
7.11 Building on these foundations, additional resources will be sought to fund programmes in educational development in Czechoslovakia, GDR, Bulgaria and Romania; to create, in partnership with British business, a Britain in Eastern Europe arts programme; and to establish language teaching centres. Funds will also be sought for youth exchanges, for specific programmes targeted on the successor generation of intellectuals, artists and professionals, and for a text translation project to provide local language editions of key British texts for use in manpower training. Plans are also developing to use satellite technology to broadcast British political, cultural and information television programmes live to local audiences in Council teaching centres, reading rooms and other premises.
Principal effectiveness measures for Eastern Europe
• number of new British cultural centres
• number of British Council-managed language teaching centres
• institutional links initiated per annum in the Soviet Union and Poland
• number of Council-selected visitors to Britain ⚫ income from private-sector sponsorship of Council activity.
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