Being British Council accredited is the basic standard that a school in the UK should have, but the British Council does not accredit schools outside the UK. If the British Council certified a school in, for example, Madrid, British Council Madrid would then be competing with a school that they had certified. As the British Council doesn’t teach English in the UK, they don’t have this problem there.
I’m not sure how anyone got the idea that the British Council offered their services as a certifier of schools anywhere in the world (Mogadishu? Papua New Guinea?) but it might be because some schools mention on their websites that their school in the UK is British Council certified. You’d certainly have to worry if they had a school in the UK that couldn’t reach those rather basic minimum standards, but that is absolutely no guarantee of anything about the school outside the UK. For example, all the EF schools in the UK are British Council certified, but I’m willing to bet that none of their schools in Indonesia or China (let alone their franchise schools there) would pass a BC inspection.
Also worth mentioning is that even in BC certified schools, there is no guarantee of staff pay, and very little guarantee of staff working conditions. Staff development – yes. A living wage – not necessarily.
This piece is either common TEFL confusions Part One, or maybe TEFL myths Part Three. TEFL myths parts one and two were:
No qualifications and experience necessary just to teach conversation
Always happy to hear other views and suggestions for other confusions and myths to tackle.
TEFLtastic 