Page 8 - ELG2003 Mar Issue 469

El•Gazette 469.qxp_El•Gazette 469 25/02/2020 21:50 Page 8

GLOBAL NEWS .

USA:
An English as a Second Language
(ESL) teacher is standing against
the Kentucky State Speaker of the
House in the primaries for the global
General Assembly, the state
legislature.
Tiffany Dunn, an ESL teacher
at Lassiter Middle School in
Louisville, Kentucky’s biggest city,
founded advocacy group Save perspective
Our Schools Kentucky, with a
mission to, “raise awareness of
impending actions and legislation
that could harm our public Gazette news editor Matt Salusbury’s
schools”. Dunn is seeking the
Republican Party nomination as a selection of ELT news from
candidate in November’s
elections, with primaries held in around the world
May.
She is standing against House
Speaker David Osborne, who has behind his “sentence”, explaining year 2018-2019, “discontinued” The scandal involved the
been the incumbent since 2005. that he “no doubt to agree (sic)” the funding regime for English for “Windrush generation” so-named
He has followed “school choice that Kaur's daughter had reached monasteries. As a result, many for the passenger ship Empire
policies,” including setting up a high standard of spoken English, monasteries are having to make Windrush which brought many
charter schools and a system of but that he found other do in any way they can. citizens of former British
scholarship tax credits. Dunn is shortcomings in her English Kuensel reported on the Caribbean territories to the UK.
standing on a platform of “properly proficiency. Or that is what he Phadojing monastery, where the Many arrived as children on their
publicly-funded” education, which appeared to mean, it was hard to principal and some volunteers parents’ passports (allowed at the
includes tax reforms such as levies tell. teach English, with very time), and settled in the UK
on the state’s casinos to subsidise The English teacher wrote occasional help from a passing despite never having – or needing
education, raising teachers’ “English of knowledge not for tourist. Some monks are also – documents proving their status.
salaries and protecting their communication (sic)” and that trying to learn English without a With changes to immigration
pensions. “Communication English is teacher. The Twelfth Plan policy from 2012, at least 83 of
diffirent (sic) from knowledge includes a Youth Engagement and these immigrants suddenly found
TIFFANY DUNN CAMPAIGN English so poor, the teacher wasn’t offers some support for English UK, and a number have been
themselves residing illegally in the
Livelihood Programme, which
English.”
Kuar was left feeling that with
deported. The ‘Windrush scandal’
classes in monasteries where the
broke in 2018, leading to an
need is “severe”, but with
qualified to grade her daughter’s
monasteries expected to bear
scheme
which
emergency
performance.

arrived before 1989, allowing
BHUTAN: some of the cost. provided ID to those who’d
to
normalise
their
them
Tiffany Dunn files to run Buddhist monks in the Himalayan UNSPLASH immigration status.
against David Osborne for mountain kingdom are struggling The EU Settled Status, for
the Kentucky House to improvise their way through which all EU nationals in the UK
English courses after government have to apply post-Brexit, has no
cuts to the English for monasteries physical ID card, only an online
MALAYSIA: programme. “secure digital status”. This has
Gwen Kuar was used to her Under the government’s a young monk in a prompted some 800 EU nationals
daughter getting A grades in Eleventh Plan, one to two hours of monastery in Bhutan who’ve been in the UK for more
English and regularly winning English a week became compulsory than 30 years – including Zaccari
reading prizes. So, she was puzzled for Buddhist monasteries in the – to apply for “Windrush” ID.
when her daughter’s English kingdom, and was funded by the UK:
teacher (the school was unnamed government. In financial year Dominique Zaccari, a French
in the Asia One report) gave her a 2017-2018 the Ministry of Labour national who arrived in the UK in
TP4 score, which put her just and Human Resources recruited a 1973 and co-founded A. Zaccari’s
slightly above average. She asked total of 130 high school and English language tutoring service IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM
for an explanation for the grade university graduates to teach in 65 in Bournemouth, has obtained an
given by the teacher. religious institutions. ID card demonstrating her right
The reply was even more However, according to news to remain after Brexit – using a The HMT Empire Windrush
shocking. In a handwritten note, website Kuensel, the government’s scheme set up after the brought the first Caribbean
the teacher gave the rationale Twelfth Plan, starting in financial “Windrush scandal”. immigrants to the UK in 1948

8 March 2020