IRELAND: Ireland’s Labour Court has announced an inquiry aimed at setting up the English Language Schools Joint Labour Committee required by the legislation passed in July (see September Gazette). This Labour Committee will regulate working terms and conditions for academic and support staff in all the country’s EFL schools.
CAMBODIA: A three-month Intensive English course organised by the Embassy of the Philippines for staff of the Cambodian senate opened in September in Phnom Penh. Led by Filipino “world class English teacher” Teddy Publico, the course, for 40 Secretariat- General officials of the Senate, is the third to be delivered by the Embassy.
STOP PRESS: Serial paedophile and former EFL teacher Richard Hubble was found murdered in Full Sutton prison shortly before we went to press. In 2016, Hubble, who reportedly took a CELTA course at the British Council in Kuala Lumpur, was convicted of abusing up to 200 local children whose families belonged to his church in Malaysia.
USA: The State of Massachusetts is taking the owner of the Boston Language Institute, which closed in January, to court (see April 2019 Gazette). “We are suing to get students their money back,” officials told the Boston Globe. Court documents allege the owner continued to take students’ money when he knew the school was insolvent.
BRAZIL: A British English teacher in Belo Horizonte was stabbed to death, allegedly by his son. Joseph Dempsey, aged 57, was found dead at his flat in September. His son admitted to police that he attacked his father, having “blanked out” after a drinking session with him, according to the Daily Mail.
UK: The House of Commons Public Affairs Committee has issued a stinging condemnation of government actions in the TOEIC scandal which has seen 50,000 students presumed guilty of cheating and 2,400 deported. Forty per cent of the 12,500 who have so far appealed to the courts have been found not guilty.
