British Council ends English classes in Russia

Moscow: The British Council has stopped offering English-language lessons in Russia after the country's foreign ministry required that it obtain a licence to keep the classes operating, an official said.

The council, an NGO that acts as the cultural department of the British Embassy and offers education and culture exchange programmes has come under pressure over the past two years from Russian authorities who claimed it was a for-profit organisation subject to taxation.

But James Kennedy, head of British Council Moscow stressed that the decision to terminate the English-language programme was its "personal decision, a business decision".

"There were reports in the media that this decision was forced upon us, that is not true," Kennedy said.

He said the Foreign Ministry demanded in September that the Council obtain a licence from the Education Ministry to continue the classes.

Licence

Kennedy said such a licence can be hard to obtain and that contributed to the decision to end the classes. He added that was the first time since the British Council began operating in Russia in the early 1990s that the Russian government required a special education licence and it was unclear why such a request was made. The Foreign Ministry was not immediately available for comment.