Page 4 - ELG1601 Dec Issue 442

Page 4 ELlanguage news December 2016

EAL student survey

faces school boycott

MATT SALUSBURY the first time included questions educational support, that would
writes on ‘nationality’ and ‘country of be one thing – but the govern-
birth’. This came at a time of a ment have failed to give any
A CenSuS of schools by the sharp increase in xenophobic evidence that this would be the
Department for education (Dfe) incidents in the uK following case.’ In the House of Com-
in england that gathers impor- the eu referendum vote, along mons, leader of the opposition
tant information on the needs with alarm at home secretary Jeremy Corbyn MP launched a
of eAL (english as an addi- Amber Rudd’s proposal to motion calling for the regula-
tional language) students was make companies submit ‘lists tions behind the ‘nationality’
Courtesy Gage Skidmore appeared on ‘nationality’ and withdrawn. to be revoked.
of foreign workers’ – since
boycotted after new questions
and ‘country of birth’ questions
‘country of birth’.
Some schools even asked
A parliamentary question by
The national Pupil Database,
parents to provide passport
Caroline Lucas MP and freedom
numbers as part of census,
existing in some form since
of information requests by Pippa
2002, has long had questions
Digital Me have revealed
on ethnicity and language pro- King of advocacy group Defend although the requirement
doesn’t appear on the guide-
Trump win turns off internationals ficiency. It asks parents which issues of informed consent in lines for schools.
Many parents and teachers
the census – the data does not
language their children speak at
home. stay anonymised or within the and some students are boycott-
In March a survey by Intead and FPP Edumedia of more than 40,000 prospective The census includes pro- school or the Dfe, and appears ing the census. Against Borders
international students revealed that 60 per cent were less likely to study in the US should ficiency codes adapted from to have been passed on to the for Children (ABC) have circu-
Donald Trump (above) be elected president, rising to 80 per cent among Mexicans. a model used in bilingual Home office for immigration lated standard letters for teachers
Ben Waxman of Intead told the Gazette the survey results were ‘speculative’ and education in Wales. eAL pro- enforcement purposes, with and parents on how to avoid fill-
that more research was needed. However, after the election, similar surveys yielded fessionals interviewed by the well over 2,000 requests from ing in ‘nationality’ and ‘country
similar results – and US students don’t look too enthusiastic either. Canadian Gazette broadly favoured the the Home office for national of birth’ data. While there is a
universities saw a surge of interest from abroad, with a sizeable part of that from census’s aim of gathering Pupil Database data since early statutory duty on schools to com-
America students. A survey of about 1,000 US and international students much-needed data to support 2015. In some cases, the Home ply, many are using the option to
conducted by Study Portals after the election shows that 85 per cent of US students england’s eALs, while the office even requested pupil’s record pupil data as ‘refused’ or
said they would now be less likely to study in the US, compared to 57 per cent of Dfe claims there’s a ‘dearth of addresses. ‘not yet known’. Leedham and
internationals. Popular alternative destinations included other anglophone information’ in this area. Diane The House of Lords passed a other eAL teachers fear these
countries (Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand) and Germany, France and Italy. Leedham, an independent eng- motion in october expressing its developments will mean parents
According to the recently released Open Doors Report 2016, international lish literacy and eAL advisory ‘regret’ at these developments. will become unwilling to talk
student numbers in the US have surpassed one million for the first time – and teacher, told the Gazette in a Liberal Democrat education to schools about their language
Saudi Arabia has become the third-largest source country after China and India personal capacity that this orig- spokesman Lord Storey, who needs.
thanks to its government-sponsored programme. inal set of questions provided brought the motion, told the Following a meeting with
Ben Waxman told the Gazette that, on a strategic and operational level ‘really crucial data’. House that introducing nation- ABC, the Dfe announced on
universities should evaluate the financial ramifications of a drop-off from specific However, following the ality data collection had ‘all 17 november that it would no
regions, devising strategies to mitigate it, such as offering scholarships to education (Pupil Informa- the hallmarks of racism’. on longer require the ‘nationality’
international students. Institutions should also work to counteract the perception tion) (england) (Miscellaneous the Lib Deb party’s website and ‘country of birth’ census
of the US as a less tolerant and welcoming country, he added. Amendments) Regulations he added, ‘If this information questions for nursery school
2016, this autumn’s census for could help them provide better children aged two to five. n
Amity drops plan to buy campuses Student

AMITY unIveRSITY, a pri- work in summer 2016 to buy the ‘quality of education’. scandal
vate university group based in new england Institute of Art, In India Amity has seven
noida near new Delhi, India, near Boston, and the Art Institute universities, a law school and
has withdrawn its application of new York City. Massachu- numerous business schools. hits AICT
to buy two university campuses setts attorney general Maura There are Amity universities in
in the uS following ‘scrutiny’ Healey asked the state to block Dubai, Mauritius, Singapore and
from the State of Massachusetts the new england sale, telling China, while Amity is reportedly
Board of Higher education. Business Insider it was a ‘bad seeking to expand into Australia. Hong Kong passport-holder
In 2015 Amity bought the idea’ to have ‘a foreign entity Amity university London runs and international student Yeuk
former campus of St John’s uni- with no experience’. Amity’s business and computing courses Tung Kong was sentenced to
versity, new York State, for $22 withdrawal followed Massachu- with degrees from the univer- seven and a half years in Perth,
million, to take over ownership setts’s enquiries to new england sity of northampton and the Australia in october for her part
in June 2017. Amity filed paper- regarding the firm’s finances and university of Bolton. n in a $29 million money launder-
ing drug smuggling plot. She
Now available on mobile became the fourth recent inter-
national student of the city’s
Growing list of ‘bogus Australian Institute of Com-
merce and Technology (AICT)
Download our teachers’ in trouble found to have been engaged in
criminal rackets after three other
Asian students of the college
app for free were sentenced for their role in
sex work, money laundering and
human trafficking rings.
HARRIS BInoTTI, currently to Thailand. The Sun newspaper reported The Australian reported
on the run from Interpol, is the Binotti previously worked as a that Smith changed his name the regulators became aware
latest in a long line of unsuitable ski holiday rep in France, a travel and re-entered Thailand on a dif- in April 2016 that AICT was
native speakers who get into rep in greece and – for ‘a cou- ferent passport, where he got a enrolling international students
trouble with the law while acting ple of weeks’ in 2014 – assistant job teaching in an international on courses it was ‘not regulated
as teachers. manager of a rural Scottish hotel. school. After a colleague noticed to deliver’. WA Today reported
Binotti had worked for ‘about Posts on the Cambodia expats that ‘all [Smith] talked about was that that the state of Western
three months’ as an english Blog forum suggest Binotti first the beautiful girls at the school’, Australia then began proceed-
teacher at Horizon International worked as an english teacher at Smith was arrested for over-stay- ings to ‘deregister’ AICT, but
School, Yangon, according to the an international school in Phonh ing his visa in 2015 and deported AICT obtained a ‘stop’ allow-
school’s manager, before his dis- Penh, Cambodia. again the following year. ing it to teach pending a review
appearance in november 2016. Problems with ‘bogus’ These recent cases highlight the of its status in December.
He was wanted in connection native-speaker ‘teachers’ have phenomenon of entirely unquali- According to WA Today, while
with the murder of his colleague abounded in South east Asia in fied and often not properly vetted full-time students at voca-
and compatriot gary Ferguson, recent years. Alan Smith, who native speaker expatriates act- tional education and training
at whose house he was last seen. worked in a holiday camp in ing as english teachers in Asia, institutions have the right to
Ferguson was found dead with the uK before his conviction entrusted with classes of children work forty hours a week, tui-
‘massive head and chest inju- for sexual assault of a minor in at international schools. The uK tion fees of over $80,000 a
ries’ according to the Express, 2005, turned up in 2007 teaching embassy in Bangkok warned Thai year plus the additional need to
with neighbours reporting the english in a monastery school in authorities in 2015 of uK nation- pay off huge fees to the agents
sound of a drunken altercation Thailand before he was deported als with ‘known criminal records’ who recruited them are turning
the night Binotti went missing. for false references on his work arriving to work as teachers in the some international students to
Binotti is believed to have fled visa application. country. n a life of crime. n

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