British Council partnership to reward online learners
The British Council and the GREAT Britain campaign are partnering with FutureLearn, the UK’s social learning platform to offer free Certificates of Achievement for eligible students completing online courses from UK universities on the FutureLearn platform.
As part of the Study UK: Discover You campaign, delivered by the British Council and the GREAT Britain campaign, the partnership will give people in more than 35 ODA countries the chance to celebrate their learning with a free Certificate of Achievement – for the first 15,000 eligible learners to complete a course. (Full list of eligible ODA countries can be found below).
Learners must start an eligible course before the end of March 2017 and complete the course to a satisfactory standard for the chance to earn a free certificate.
From courses such as Social Enterprise: Turning ideas into Action from Middlesex University Business School to Understanding Public Financial Management: How Is Your Money Spent? From SOAS University of London, Learners can choose from a range of over 150 courses on our Study UK webpage now.
Rob Lynes, British Council Director UK said “UK higher education is a proven pathway to a better life and enhanced career prospects. We hope that the wide-ranging choice of online courses and the free Certificate of Achievement will encourage people to try a free online course from a UK Institution.
By providing such an excellent opportunity, giving students a taster of UK higher education, we are promoting and reinforcing the UK’s place in the world.”
Simon Nelson, Futurelearn CEO said “At FutureLearn, we truly believe that education can change people’s lives and we’re dedicated to widening access to it on a global scale. We’re very proud to be part of this work with the British Council and be a part of the GREAT Britain campaign to drive open access to education to the furthest corners of the world.
Who is eligible?
To be eligible for the free certificates learners must reside in the listed ODA countries while taking online courses before 31 March, 2017. The eligible courses are from United Kingdom higher education Institutions only.
To gain a certificate, the courses must be completed to a satisfactory standard – 90% steps completed and all a 70% or above test mark, where applicable.
All available courses can be seen via our dedicated website page.
A learner can earn more than one certificate during the campaign period, however we will encourage Learners to share the offer around so their friends can benefit too.
Notes to Editor
Full List of ODA countries eligible for free Certificates of Achievement:
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Congo (Dem. Rep.), Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Malaysia, Malawi, Mexico, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Vietnam, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe
About Study UK: Discover You ; the new Education is GREAT campaign is designed to promote the best of British education overseas and support the global objectives of UK universities. The Study UK: Discover You initiative focuses on the experiences, knowledge and confidence that students can gain from UK study, whether in the UK, or overseas or through distance learning, online provision, and other models. The campaign is being delivered by the British Council and supported by nearly 100 universities.
The GREAT Britain campaign
The GREAT Britain campaign showcases the very best of what the country has to offer to encourage the world to visit, study and do business with the UK. It has generated returns of more than £2.2bn for the UK economy since 2012.
About FutureLearn
Founded by The Open University in 2012, FutureLearn is a social learning platform, designed to support learning through conversation. It offers 5.2 million learners free online courses from world-leading UK and international universities, centres of research excellence and specialist education providers like the British Council, Creative Skillset and European Space Agency. FutureLearn is an international platform with over 75% of its users based outside of the UK.
About the British Council
The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. We create friendly knowledge and understanding between the people of the UK and other countries. Using the UK’s cultural resources we make a positive contribution to the countries we work with – changing lives by creating opportunities, building connections and engendering trust.
We work with over 100 countries across the world in the fields of arts and culture, English language, education and civil society. Each year we reach over 20 million people face-to-face and more than 500 million people online, via broadcasts and publications.
Founded in 1934, we are a UK charity governed by Royal Charter and a UK public body. The majority of our income is raised delivering a range of projects and contracts in English teaching and examinations, education and development contracts and from partnerships with public and private organisations. Eighteen per cent of our funding is received from the UK government.
