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Talk to someone considering immigrating or studying abroad and ask them to name one essential step in the entire screening process they would like to skip. Most of them are bound to answer that they would prefer to avoid IELTS test if possible. This is because the IELTS test not only adds extra expense to their immigration process but also requires them to spend a good amount of time preparing for the exam. In immigration to some destinations and under certain programs, such as the Australia General Skilled Migration Program, immigration programs require that both the principal applicant and their spouse also appear for the IELTS test. While this makes the immigration process more costly and difficult, applicants do not realize that the IELTS test is only to their advantage. Read further and know how?
Is it unfair?
There are applicants who excel in their professional field of expertise and find it unfair that the decision on their immigration application depends not only on their professional excellence but also on their language skills. This is based on the observation that others who may not have achieved the same level of professional excellence but are fluent in the English language are more easily granted immigration visas.
This is also the concern of students planning to study abroad. In their opinion, the deciding factor for course and university selection should be the scores they scored at their school or university level and IELTS puts them at a disadvantage to those who have better language skills.
Importance of IELTS Exam
So why has the IELTS test become such an integral part of immigration applications for almost all immigration destinations and programs? And why do the applicants have to go through the difficult IELTS preparation process and spend huge amount of money to take these tests? More importantly, we need to think about why is it that no option is provided for such applicants who are unable to qualify in this exam?
Former System of Assessing English Language Skills
This is because English language skills have always been an important selection criterion under the marks-based system since its inception. In the past, immigration officers used to conduct one-to-one interviews to judge the applicant’s English language skills and decide how many points they would like to award to the applicant.
But such a system created hostility and unfair conditions for both the visa processing office and immigration applicants. There are several reasons why this system of evaluating applicants’ language skills has been replaced by the IELTS test.
First, the delay in the immigration process is greatly exacerbated because visa officers must conduct all interviews on an individual basis to make decisions about each applicant. When viewed in the context of queues of thousands of applicants, this meant additional processing delays of years. Second, it made the language skills assessment highly subjective as it was based on the understanding of the visa officer conducting the interview.
Furthermore, in conducting such face-to-face interviews, the immigrant applicant cannot be tested for all major areas of language proficiency, including comprehension, reading, speaking, and listening.
Introduction to IELTS
Hence the need was felt for an objective test which was an internationally accepted, standardized benchmark and evaluation tool. Standardization was very important so as to provide equal opportunity to all the applicants. Thus, IELTS has become an integral part of the immigration process and applications, especially for skilled professionals, independent immigration, general skilled migrants and in some cases green card visa applications as well. The IELTS test is thus based on evaluating the applicant’s skills in all four components of the language including speaking, listening, comprehension and reading.
IELTS has also been made an important requirement for students who opt to study abroad for most of the popular destinations such as Canada, Australia, UK, USA and New Zealand. Language is clearly a major area that can and does create difficult situations, especially when applicants do not have English as their primary language and have never been exposed to an international language accent.
For students who are not very fluent in the language, it can really become a nightmare as they arrive at a course and university where they do not understand the instructions and are unable to communicate with the teachers and the rest of the peer group There are Add to that the cost of living away from home, along with expensive foreign education.
IELTS test gives all such expatriates an opportunity to avoid any such awkward situation and check their language skill level before selecting the course and university to study abroad. Most of the international educational institutions offer language development courses for international students who are not very fluent with the language. Students can first take such foundation and language development courses for a specified duration and then they are allowed to take admission in the course of their choice.
Therefore, the IELTS test is an objective English language assessment tool that is internationally accepted by government agencies and immigration educational institutions alike. Therefore it has become an essential part of the immigration visa process and study abroad applicants. So, an applicant is advised to prepare well if they want to earn some marks by scoring well in various test modules. Taking advice from an immigration expert is a wise decision to give a direction to your IELTS preparation as well as your immigration process in general.
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