A college staff member used his work laptop to send sexually explicit messages, a professional standards panel has heard. Gaio Ze Kouyate, a virtual world learning specialist at Cardiff and Vale College, also created sexualised avatars within the CAVC virtual campus and failed to ensure safeguarding measures to protect learners from accessing inappropriate content, the panel was told.

An Education Workforce Council Wales committee this week was told Kouyate also suggested to one or more colleagues that students could change their dates of birth to allow them access to material on the Second Life virtual world system that was restricted to under-18s. He was not present at the EWC fitness to practise hearing held virtually on Tuesday March 11 and March 12 and was not represented, which means the allegations against him are all taken as denied.

Questioned by the committee Lisa Purcell, who was responsible for managing safeguarding teams at the college, said Kouyate would have received mandatory safeguarding training. She told the hearing that she had been alerted to sexualised avatars he had created within the virtual world which students and staff used. Read the biggest stories in Wales first by signing up to our daily newsletter here.

Ms Purcell said that some of the avatars Kouyate created had exaggerated breasts, genitalia and hips and there had been "inappropriate" conversations with other users in the chat boxes. He had also created inappropriate transgender and "homosexual" avatars and an over-sexualised female murder victim avatar in a virtual crime scene he created for the forensic department learning.

Stevie Emmanuel, head of technology and advanced learning at the college, was Kouyate's line manager from 2022. She admitted to the panel that he had too much autonomy creating virtual worlds for students to use.

Describing the "murder victim" in the virtual campus created by Kouyate, Ms Emmanuel said there was a learning case study where an avatar killed a female victim who was highly sexualised.

"Kouyate was the one who set up the crime scene and created the avatar. It was concerning he used a highly sexualised avatar," she told the panel.

The hearing was told that Kouyate was tasked with building the virtual CAVC campus within the Second World virtual space, which was only accessible to staff and students in the college. But following concerns about over-sexualised avatars he created, the college was later alerted to Kouyate using his college avatar to communicate with people within the public space on Second World.

Ms Emmanuel described the CAVC virtual campus as "an online space where learners could continue to learn out of the classroom. It was a closed built environment within the public Second Life system." CAVC students could create avatars who could walk around the virtual CAVC campus and chat while lecturers could also design learning activities within it.

Ms Emmanuel said she had spoken to Kouyate about not creating inappropriately sexualised avatars but he did not take her concerns fully on board. She said she had also had concerns that people outside the college could get into the CAVC section of Second World and access was changed to only admit "people from the college."

Kouyate was suspended on full pay after it was discovered that he used his work laptop and CAVC avatar to go into the Second Life virtual space and access "inappropriate sexualised content", the hearing was told. This was flagged because although it was not within the CAVC virtual campus Kouyate was accessing the content from a work laptop and was identifiable as a college staff member.

Kouyate faces the following allegations:

That he is guilty of unacceptable professional conduct whilst employed as a virtual world learning specialist at Cardiff and Vale College (‘CAVC’) in that:

1. On or around October 18, 2022, he used his CAVC laptop to:
a) access content that was inappropriate and/or sexual in nature; and/or
b) send sexually explicit messages.
2. In relation to his conduct at the allegations 1a and/or 1b above he did this whilst using an avatar
which was, or appeared to be, the same or similar to his CAVC avatar.
3. Between 2021 and 2022, he:
a) failed to ensure there were adequate safeguarding controls to protect learners from potential
exposure to inappropriate content as part of the development and/or management of the
CAVC virtual campus; and/or
b) created sexualised avatars within the CAVC virtual campus; and/or
c) provided Colleague A with a link to a spreadsheet containing usernames and passwords for the
CAVC virtual campus, thus enabling uncontrolled access to this information; and/or
d) inappropriately suggested to one or more colleagues, that learners could change their dates of
birth to allow them to access material on the Second Life system that was otherwise restricted
for those under 18 years of age.

The hearing continues.

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