The Gazette editorial team’s selection of ELT news from around the world
NEPAL:
In 2017, English language teacher Keith Poultney was ending his time as a volunteer English teacher in a remote village in Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley, when he started to experience a fever. He told the Daily Mail newspaper that at the time he was, “not overly concerned as a number of my friends had colds or flu after travelling to that part of Nepal.”
After his job in Nepal ended, he travelled to India, where he was taken seriously ill. A friend discovered a tick in Keith’s ear, which he removed. Keith was treated with antibiotics by a doctor in India, but his condition worsened. He flew home with a temperature of 40°C, to Waterlooville, Hampshire, where started to experience hallucinations.
He was diagnosed with Rickettsial typhus, transmitted by a tick bite, which caused his brain to swell up. After extensive hospital treatment, Poultney still suffers from lasting brain damage and memory problems.
CANADA:
More than 400 applicants to Niagara College, Ontario were asked to take a second language test after inconsistencies were found in their IELTS test results.All of the students in question had taken the test in India.
The investigation was launched after the college found that the number of its academically at-risk international students soared from around 150 in previous intakes to 300 in the current academic year. An in-house test identified poor English as the most significant factor. Eighty per cent of the atrisk group had taken the IELTS. Niagara College has alerted the IELTS consortium and Immigration Canada.
CAMEROON:
Separatists seeking to set up an independent, Anglophone ‘Republic of Ambazonia’ have been targeting schools in the North-western region of the country, forcing schoolchildren to stay home.
Some 80 school students were abducted from a Presbyterian Secondary School in the provincial capital Bamenda in early 2018. Other schools have been set on fire by separatist militias.
The attacks initially targeted state school as a challenge to the government of the majority Francophone country. After the authorities responded by sending in heavily armed guards, the attackers switched to private schools, often in the hope of extracting ransom.
Joannes Paulus Yimbesalu of charity TheirWorld, told ReliefWeb that, “what was a great
education system is at risk of failing over in the next five years.” He added, “Which parents would send their kids to school now?”
Cameroon’s ‘Language Wars’ began with a 2016 strike by Anglophone lawyers and teachers over language rights. This has grown into a conflict that has seen an estimated 200 police and soldiers and 500 civilians killed.
FRANCE:
A lecturer in English for Academic Purposes died after being stabbed repeatedly in the neck, chest and throat by a former student. The attack occurred outside the Leonardo Da Vinci University in suburban Paris.
John Dowling, from Ireland, had stepped out for lunch when a man identified as Ali R, confronted him.
The attacker, who had been excluded in 2017, was angry about his exam results, according to the Irish Mirror. He was arrested at the scene and later charged with murder.
Dowling, aged 66, had taught at the private institution since 1999. France’s higher education minister Frédérique Vidal expressed shock and anger at the murder.
