Alison Barrett MBE leads the India operations of the British Council across our work in English, Education and Arts. She is committed to strengthening the educational and cultural exchange between India and the UK by building connections, understanding and trust.
Alison has worked for the British Council for over 25 years in a variety of roles in our Teaching, Examinations and Cultural Engagement units supporting the building of connections between the UK and our network overseas. Most of her career has been spent in the Asia-Pacific region, with posts based in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, UAE and Thailand. Prior to joining the British Council, she worked as a teacher in Nepal, Japan and South Korea.
Since 2011, Alison has held numerous senior management positions at country, regional and global level. Her last stint prior to taking up the Director India role was as the Cultural Engagement Business Director for the East Asia region, she led the British Council’s Education, English and Arts portfolio in China, North and Southeast Asia and Australia and New Zealand. Since 2020, she’s been the SRO of The Climate Connection – a global programme and platform for dialogue and action, which has connected young people, policy makers and sector specialists from the UK and over 178 countries together to tackle the climate emergency through culture, education and English.
Alison is particularly interested in higher and basic education and English. She holds an MA in Teaching English as a Second Language from the Institute of Education, University of London and in 2014, Alison was awarded an MBE for services to the teaching and learning of English in India. Alison is married with two teenage children.