Page 8 - ELG1901 Jan-Feb 463

GLOBAL NEWS .

NEPAL:
In 2017, English language teacher
Keith Poultney was ending his
time as a volunteer English
teacher in a remote village in gl bal
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 perspective
travelling to that part of Nepal.”
After his job in Nepal ended,
he travelled to India, where he
was taken seriously ill. A friend The Gazette editorial team’s
discovered a tick in Keith’s
ear, which he removed. Keith selection of ELT news from
was treated with antibiotics around the world
by a doctor in India, but his
condition worsened. He flew
home with a temperature of 40°C, number of its academically at-risk
to Waterlooville, Hampshire, international students soared from
where started to experience around 150 in previous intakes to ALBERTO VACCARO
hallucinations. 300 in the current academic year.
He was diagnosed with An in-house test identified poor
Rickettsial typhus, transmitted English as the most significant
by a tick bite, which caused his factor. Eighty per cent of the at-
brain to swell up. After extensive risk group had taken the IELTS.
hospital treatment, Poultney still Niagara College has alerted the
suffers from lasting brain damage IELTS consortium and Immigration
and memory problems. Canada.

MCVOORHIS CREATIVE COMMONS Separatists seeking to set up Children in class in the Progressive Comprehensive High
CAMEROON:

an independent, Anglophone
‘Republic of Ambazonia’ have
been targeting schools in the
School Mankon, Bamenda, Cameroon
North-western region of the
country, forcing schoolchildren to
education system is at risk of
Leonardo Da Vinci University in
stay home.
suburban Paris.
failing over in the next five years.”
Some 80 school students were ReliefWeb that, “what was a great The attack occurred outside the
abducted from a Presbyterian He added, “Which parents would John Dowling, from Ireland,
Secondary School in the provincial send their kids to school now?” had stepped out for lunch
Ticks similar to this can capital Bamenda in early 2018. Cameroon’s ‘Language Wars’ when a man identified as Ali R,
carry a variety of diseases Other schools have been set on began with a 2016 strike by confronted him.
fire by separatist militias. Anglophone lawyers and teachers The attacker, who had been
The attacks initially targeted over language rights. This has excluded in 2017, was angry
CANADA: state school as a challenge to grown into a conflict that has about his exam results, according
More than 400 applicants to the government of the majority seen an estimated 200 police and to the Irish Mirror. He was
Niagara College, Ontario were Francophone country. After the soldiers and 500 civilians killed. arrested at the scene and later
asked to take a second language authorities responded by sending charged with murder.
test after inconsistencies were in heavily armed guards, the Dowling, aged 66, had taught
found in their IELTS test results. attackers switched to private FRANCE: at the private institution since
All of the students in question had schools, often in the hope of A lecturer in English for Academic 1999. France’s higher education
taken the test in India. extracting ransom. Purposes died after being stabbed minister Frédérique Vidal
The investigation was launched Joannes Paulus Yimbesalu repeatedly in the neck, chest expressed shock and anger at
after the college found that the of charity TheirWorld, told and throat by a former student. the murder.

8 January/February 2019