The British Council is the UK's international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations – the business of building trust and understanding between nations.
We operate in 109 countries all over the world winning friends and influence for the UK.
Our activity includes the arts, education and training, teaching English language, science and technology, sport, governance and human rights.
English language
In 2011, we reached nearly 100 million students via broadcasts, print and digital English teaching. Downloads of our mobile applications have exceeded one million.
300,000 learners took part in British Council teaching centre classes. We deliver more than 1.3 million hours of English lessons in over 80 teaching centres and partner premises in 49 countries. In Portugal, we teach around 50,000 hours of English to approximately 9,000 learners over a year.
Teaching
We supported almost five million English language teachers around the world. We help improve the quality of teaching in national schools and higher and further education systems through policy work and teacher training programmes. In Portugal, we have a long history of cooperation with APPI (Associação Portuguesa de Professores de Inglês), and with the Ministry of Education, who we are currently working with on the Bilingual Schools Project.
Exams
Last year, over 2 million people in 90 countries took English, school and professional exams with us, with more than 13,000 of them in Portugal.
Events
During 2012, over 50,000 people visited exhibitions and festivals supported by the British Council in Portugal, and through our projects and programmes we engaged with a further 3,000 people.
Corporate reports and documents
The British Council produces a number of corporate reports and documents. Download our annual reports and corporate plans.