Working with the British Council

The EOA have just setup an agreement to work with the British Council which has centres in ninety three countries all over the world, on developing training packages for its exams office workforce.

The EOA has members all over the world in MOT schools, International Language Schools and a number of British Council schools who all do British style exams. While the exam processes and paperwork may look very familiar to you in the UK, the environments in which these exams office staff operate are very different.
 

Consider the story of an exam officer having to go through check points between Palestine and Israel with a secure exam box full of papers and trying to insist – ‘according to JCQ rules I cannot open the box and papers before I get to the secure centre to store the papers away for the next exam period’.
 

Many of the exam officers in the Middle East are female just like in the UK (over 70%) but how would you like to be an exam officer in a centre where you cannot be alone with male candidates? Just as our domestic experience will help support our colleagues abroad, there is no doubt that we in the UK can also learn from their expertise abroad and in context put various issues and concerns into perspective.