Interview with ROBIN BAKER
Deputy Director General of The British Council

by Cristina Tache - Radio Romania journalist
July 2002 (fragments)

Robin Baker took up his post as Deputy Director-General at the end of July 2002. Previously he worked as Director Europe (from December 1999) and before that as Director Western and Southern Europe. Robin joined the Council in 1984. Prior to this he carried out research on Eastern Europe. Since joining he has worked in South Africa, Personnel Department, Hungary, Greece and Russia. He holds a personal research grant from the British Academy for research on the ethnic minorities of South East Europe and is External Examiner in East European studies at University College London.

Q1. Robin Baker, Deputy Director General of the British Council. Given your new position, I would like to start with a more general question, just to put our discussion into a framework. How important is culture for the enhancement of relationships between two countries?

I think it is very important, and of course it’s fundamental to the kind of work that we do at the British Council. One can define diplomacy as having three legs: one leg is political, the second is economic or commercial, the third is cultural. And there is a limit to how far political and commercial diplomacy can go. They are obviously crucially important, but they can’t go all the way in developing and sustaining good relations between different countries and different peoples. And that’s where the third element – the cultural element - comes in.

Q2. Before being Deputy Director General, you were Director for Europe and in that capacity you are very well aware of the programmes the British Council runs in Europe, including Romania. Would you enlarge on the main programmes that the British Council has in Romania? What is the aim of these programmes?

Romania is one of our major directorates in Europe. It’s a very important country in South East Europe and in Central Europe for all sorts of reasons, and we recognize that importance. We also recognize that Romania has a great culture and a great educational tradition.

And Romanians, old and young, respond very well to cultural and educational exchange and dialogue. So Romania is a very rewarding country for us to work in because the kind of work that we do is appreciated and it’s appreciated, I think, for a number of reasons.

The first is that there is a recognition in Romania that the UK’s culture and education are relevant in a European context. That it is one of the great European cultures and the education system has a lot of credibility and this is respected. The second reason is because, as I said earlier, Romania itself has a great cultural and educational tradition.

The quality of the Romanian “output” is demonstrated by the fact that Romanian artistic companies go around the world, there are celebrated individuals, great musicians, for example, and great theatre professionals. They have a worldwide reputation. But let’s not ignore the fact that the US computer industry seems to rely heavily on Romanian IT engineering skills and this is true also in Western Europe. So, there’s this great tradition and that means by sharing our experiences, achievements and aspirations for the future we can develop together. This is really what the British Council is about - partnership that produces mutual benefit. So, whether it’s in the arts, whether it’s in education or science, Romania represents a wonderful environment for us because we can talk to people who are really speaking the same language and have the same interests, namely how we can make both our countries better through sharing our experience, our mistakes, our successes and thereby learn from each other.

Now specifically about our programmes in Romania. The big challenge for the British Council in Romania is that Romania itself is changing very quickly. The change over the last decade has been huge and one would expect with NATO membership on the horizon, and a bit further down the track EU membership, the momentum of change is going to continue and increase. And there are all sorts of interesting developments going on in the region where Romania is situated. So the big challenge for the British Council is how we ensure that what we are doing keeps step with the demand for what we do from Romania.

What we don’t want to do and can afford to do is fall behind, becoming obsolescent. It seems to me that the demand in Romania is pushing us increasingly to enhancing what we do through web applications because increasing numbers of young Romanians – and our main target group is the young - are going to the web for their information rather than wandering along to the British Council or somewhere else to get it. We therefore have to ensure that our web presence is relevant. We are developing with the British Embassy a portal in Romanian for Romanians to access the best of British resources. In the arts we are planning a really great push: we are negotiating for a major Henry Moore retrospective, the first one ever in Romania, to take place in 2004 at the national gallery in Bucharest. Romania is a place which historically has a tradition in monumental sculpture, of course most famously expressed by Brancusi. It would be magnificent if we could get a parallel exhibition of Brancusi’s large works in London, such as the exhibition that was held in Paris at the end of the ’90s. So the arts will remain very important for us. So too will English language teaching: we’ve done a huge amount over the last ten years to work with the Romanian system to upgrade teachers’ skills and also the curricula. A lot of that work has been completed, but there are now new areas opening up. For example many Romanians want to get internationally recognized qualifications. Britain has some professionally very good English language qualifications with an international validity, and we have to recognize that Romanians are becoming increasingly mobile in terms of the job market. The big challenge, I think, for Romania is to get people back to the country, not to stop them going. Get them back with what they’ve learnt, but that’s not your question. So we are working very much in Romania in meeting the demand for English language tests. More and more young Romanians are taking the Cambridge examinations through the British Council, whic h is hardly surprising: Romania has the highest pass rate in the world - over 90 % of Romanians taking those tests, at any level, are passing. It’s an extraordinary achievement and an eloquent indicator of the natural talents and superb teaching and learning abilities of Romanians. Therefore English language will remain important but we have to make sure that what we are doing is geared to what Romania needs. In science we haven’t done that much, we want to do much more. It’s in public awareness issues that we will concentrate because there are all sorts of issues that affect us in Europe, like genetically modified foods and medical ethics, environmental issues, equally important to Romania and to the UK. We share a very strong science base, let’s work together. Information, I talked about. We are changing the nature of our offer in various provincial cities in Romania. We’re going to upgrade what we do in Cluj, in Iasi, in Timisoara. Their collections up to now have been very much geared to providing a re source for English language teachers. We want to extend their scope and perhaps even open an English language teaching centre in one of the cities. At the same time in the other cities we’re in we will gradually hand over our collections to local partners. And then, the final element is in education: we want to provide a bridge between Romania and the UK in education. There are scholarship opportunities, for example funded by the Foreign Office; they will continue. But more and more Romanians are asking us about what the education opportunities are in the UK and we have to make sure that we maintain up to date information, both for short experiences, like summer schools in English, right up to post graduate and post doctoral opportunities.

Q3. Before the interview you told me the first time you went to Romania you were a teenager. And I know you have now a house in the Danube Delta, in Sulina. Well, how was Romania before 1989, and how is Romania today?

All of these things are very true. I became very interested in your country when I was quite young, as I said. So for the last thirty years I’ve been visiting on and off. It was harder before ’89 to visit for obvious reasons. But in the early ’90s I was visiting a great deal and I have kept that pattern up since. As you said, I have a house in Sulina, it’s a wonderful place, but there are so many wonderful places in Romania. It’s an extraordinarily beautiful and varied country with a very, very sad history which has shaped, I think, the character of the Romanian people. I find Romanians tremendously engaging, stimulating interlocutors. I have many friends who are Romanian.
How is Romania? What would you tell someone, your British friends, for instance, about Romania? Would you tell them: “Go to Romania, it’s a God blessed country, a gorgeous country”?

Yes, in fact not only “would I”, but I do. I encourage every one I talk to about Romania, to go. I think one of the problems for Romania is that it is not very well known, or it is known but for the wrong things (AIDS babies, orphans, pollution, and environmental catastrophes). It’s not known as well as it should be for the warmth of the people, the generosity of the people. I think I’ve experienced more genuine, selfless hospitality in Romania than anywhere else in the world. The warmth of the people we’ve discussed already, the cultural richness of the country, the beauty of the country. It needs to be known for these things. How is Romania? Well, Romania has had, as I said, a sad history but there’s every indication that when the history is written of Romania in the 21st century, it will be considered – I hope – the golden age for your country.