Page 3 - ELG1601 Jul Issue 438

July 2016 ELlanguage news Page 3

Teacher convicted of

summer course fraud

ANdREA PéREz and not to have passed on the Levante reported that Begoña
writes course fees to St Andrews. n. convinced St Andrews she
Valencia City Council had was still owed the sum agreed by
A lAnguAge teacher in an agreement with Begoña n., Valencia City Council towards
Valencia, Spain has been sen- paying her company a subsidy course fees, blaming the arrears
tenced to prison for three and of €12,000 per english lan- on the council, with the univer-
a half years for defrauding guage course as part of their sity accepting her excuses for
€317,283 from the elT sum- Campanya d’Estui (Campaign late payment.
Students)
mer school operation of the
for
At the trial, Soledad con-
programme.
Courtesy Jayme Melrose, Common Roots Urban Farm versities. for youth affairs, identified Despite these arrears, the uni-
university of St Andrews – one
firmed that the council had paid
Together with two councillors,
Valencia’s cabinet member
of Scotland’s most ancient uni-
Begoña n. the agreed funds.
versity once again trusted the
The teacher, identified in
as Councillor Soledad, trav-
elled to meet members of the
the Spanish press as Begoña
teacher,
believing Valencia
n., owned language Acad-
Royal Burgh of St Andrews
City Council was at fault. St
emy Sl in Valencia. Begoña
(the
Andrews organised a new sum-
Community
Council
local town council). This visit
n. signed a contract with St
mer course for 2004, but once
Andrews to buy its elT sum-
‘reinforced the appearance of
again Begoña n. failed to pay
mer school courses, for which
solvency, backed by a public
them the course fees. When the
she would recruit paying stu-
dents from Spain and send
tencing statement at Begoña
against her, they discovered the
them to the university. Accord-
n.’s trial, quoted by Scottish
fraud, with debts of €317,283,
ing to local newspaper Levante body’, according to the sen- university pursued legal action
national daily The Herald.
leading to the closure of lan-
Migrants plug farming skills gap El Mercantil Valenciano, stu- After hearing of ‘irregularities’ guage Academy Sl. Its owner
dents on these courses paid
in language Academy Sl’s
denied fraud during the trial,
Begoña n. between €430 and dealings with other institu- but the judge in a Valencia
More than twenty ‘new Canadian’ ESL students have been learning English at the €530 – a total of €202,974 – tions, Soledad declined to pay court found her guilty, and also
outdoor classroom that is Common Roots Urban Farm on the site of a former high for academic years 2002 and Begoña n. for the 2004 courses ordered her to pay €300,000
school in the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, in Canada. The students – many of 2003. But she appears only to at St Andrews, according to compensation to the university
whom arrived as young refugees from Syrian last winter – ‘are coming once a have paid travel costs to agents europa Press. of St Andrews at €6 a day. n
week to help out and be involved. It’s great because so many of them have a
farming background,’ Jayme Melrose, Common Roots Urban Farm project
coordinator, told the Global News channel. (Its reporter Alexa MacLean is pictured
front row, centre among ESL students at the farm.)
The produce grown by the students is donated to a local food bank or sold to Saudis to
buy teaching materials and farm supplies. Many recently arrived immigrant ESL
students turn out to have the farming skills now in desperately short supply in the
developed world and in great demand in the agricultural sector. The Gazette’s cut expat
news editor recalls former Esol students who could plough fields using tractors
by their early teens and milk camels.
posts
Thais test Abuser posed bian news outlets, almost
ACCoRDIng To Saudi Ara-
teachers as EL teacher 4,000 non-Saudi lecturers in
the higher education sector are
to have their contracts termi-
nated by the end of the summer.
These teachers, working in the
THe TeACHeRS Council of RICHARD HuCKle, a British programmes that bring over Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s
Thailand is planning to test national sentenced in the uK native-speaker teachers or public-sector universities lec-
all english teachers – whether in June for 71 child sex crimes teaching assistants. turing in english, physics and Now available on mobile
native or not – in a bid to raise committed in Malaysia, had Huckle preyed on underprivi- maths, are reportedly being
english teaching standards and taken a Celta course with the leged children in Kuala lumpur replaced with suitably qualified
improve Thai students’ language British Council. But he appears for eight years from 2008, using Saudi nationals.
proficiency. never to have done paid work as his voluntary work to groom Al-Riyadh newspaper Download our
The move, reports the Bang- an english teacher, apparently them. At his trial in london, defended this development,
kok Post, would not only provide only using his Tefl qualifica- under ‘sex tourism’ laws allow- saying government agencies
assurance on teachers’ english tion to lend respectability to his ing British nationals to be should only hire non-Saudis in app for free
language proficiency but also cover as a charity worker to gain convicted for crimes committed the ‘absence of the citizen to
allow the government to ‘swell access to children. abroad, Huckle pleaded guilty. fill those jobs’. A translation of
the ranks of qualified english Huckle was in his teens when Judge Peter Rock QC, sentenc- an Al-Riyadh article seen by the
language teachers’, who are in became active in an ethnic- ing him to 22 concurrent life Gazette suggested that english
short supply (see January 2016 minority Christian group in the terms, described how Huckle language ‘instructor’ posts, as
Gazette). uK. A backpacking gap year in had posed as a ‘respectable … opposed to lecturer jobs, would
Teachers are normally Asia followed, then a placement Christian english teacher’ and be unaffected, but did not give
required to hold a degree in edu- with a church in Kuala lumpur, ‘philanthropist’. any detail on the differences
cation to teach in primary and Malaysia’s capital. Huckle took Huckle boasted of his between these roles.
secondary schools. However, the entry-level Celta course exploits and shared images However, Al-Araibya news-
the new certificate would enable to teach adults english with of abuse on the ‘dark web’. paper reported that the kingdom
them to teach english straight the British Council in Kuala He was discovered when an had no plans to replace foreign
away, and at the same time help lumpur, even featuring in one Australian Federal Police unit workers within Saudi Ara-
screen unqualified native speak- of its promotional videos. raided the Adelaide home of bia as part of attempts to curb
ers who possess the necessary Some Malaysian newspapers another paedophile and took unemployment. labour min-
linguistic proficiency but inad- described Huckle as an ‘english over his online network. ister Mufrej al-Haqbani said,
equate teaching skills. tutor’, but the British Council Malaysia currently has no ‘There is no strategic target to
Deputy permanent secretary Malaysia told national daily register of sex offenders against reduce the number of working
for education Chaiyot Imsuwan, The Star it had ‘no records to which background checks can be expatriates. The presence of
also acting secretary-general of indicate he was ever engaged as made, but assistant police chief expatriates is very important for
the Teachers’ Council, said the a teacher’ by them. The Rakyat ong Chin lan of D11, the Royal the economy.’ n
British Council may be asked Post also quoted an educa- Malaysian Police sex crimes
to provide advice on testing for tion ministry director general division, assured The Star her Updates on this developing
language proficiency and teach- as saying Huckle wasn’t in division was bringing one in, to story can be read online at
ing skills. n either of the government’s two be in place later this year. n www.elgazette.com/news.html

p02-03_ELG0716.indd 2 6/28/2016 5:47:11 PM