a monopoly enjoyed by the english language test ielts is likely to be broken up.

hgi9174g · 发表于 2010-5-19 21:04:45

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Immigration and Citizenship Minister Chris Evans has given in-principle approval for rival tests to be officially recognised for checks of English proficiency when overseas students or workers seek visas.

"We're very hopeful. There's really no objective reason why TOEFL [the US-based Test of English as a Foreign Language] could not be confidently used in the Australian [immigration] context," said Eileen Tyson, a TOEFL representative in Australia this month for talks.

TOEFL, which dates back to 1964, and a new test from global publisher Pearson are known to have applied to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship for official status.

IELTS, the International English Language Testing System, which emerged from British and Australian collaboration, has had a monopoly since 2001 when the department mandated its test for student visas. It has also enjoyed a near monopoly for skilled migration. IELTS has struggled at times to keep up with the demand for its tests, leading to complaints about waiting times.

Helen Cook, who works with TOEFL in Australia, said insistence on IELTS by the department could be a disincentive for potential overseas students who had a TOEFL result for admission to an Australian university.

Reporting his 2009 study of overseas students who did not take up an offer, researcher Alan Olsen said: "Australia might need to look at why it does not accept TOEFL results for higher degree by research students from countries such as China, India and Iran."

In April 2008, education broker IDP Australia Pty Ltd paid $28.7 million to become sole owner of IELTS Australia Pty Ltd.

Four months later, the Immigration Department began a review of the IELTS monopoly by inviting other test providers to put their case for recognition. One estimate puts the worth of the Australian test market at about $30m, although this may be reduced by the government's decoupling of education and immigration.

Last month, Senator Evans wrote to TOEFL and other test providers to tell them of "his in-principle support for the acceptance of more than one English language test under the migration regulations", a department spokesman said.

There was some more work to be done on the security of tests, and on the equivalence of scores between different tests, before a final decision, the spokesman said.

如果以后真的toefl也能用的话。。大家认为多少等效4个7？ 110？