Capita to take on running of UK student exchange programme from British Council
A union has expressed alarm after it emerged that the British Council would be stripped of its role running the UK’s Turing student exchange scheme and replaced by the outsourcing firm Capita.
The Guardian reported that the council – the UK’s international educational and cultural organisation – had been undercut by Capita in a tendering process.
The news came just a few months into the operation of the Turing scheme, which has an annual budget of £110 million and is seeking to send 28,000 students from more than 120 universities overseas this year.
The Turing scheme replaced the UK’s involvement in the European Union’s Erasmus+ exchange, which had been administered in the UK by the British Council since 2014. It had helped run the predecessor Erasmus programme since 2007.
The new contract, which runs from March 2022 to the end of 2023, is for the delivery of the Turing scheme across the four nations of the UK.
Capita will be assisted by organisations including the Association of Colleges, the Sutton Trust, and the Association of Commonwealth Universities, The Guardian reported.
