October 14, 2024

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IELTS changes hands, sparks bitter fight | India News

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MUMBAI: Education agents across India are up in arms over study abroad consultant IDP’s acquisition of British Council’s India IELTS business, the English proficiency test, for £130 million on a debtfree, cash free basis.
The Association of Study Abroad Consultants in India (ASACI) has expressed fears over the monopoly in English language proficiency tests that IDP will now command and are weighing their options of approaching the Competition Commission of India (CCI). IELTS is globally co-owned by IDP, the British Council and Cambridge Assessment English. After the sale, all IELTS tests in India would be delivered by IDP. India is the largest IELTS market by volume.
The test is taken by lakhs of Indian candidates every year aspiring to go abroad, migrate or take up an overseas assignment, making it a hugely profitable product. British Council will stop offering IELTS from July 25 in India: new bookings have already stopped. “Apart from taking legal recourse, we are writing to universities that only accept IELTS to also start recognising scores of other English proficiency tests like TOEFL and PTE,” said Sonal Parekh-Hariyaa, counsellor and an ASACI member.
The main objection from ASACI is that IDP offers an entire suite of services: it is both agent (of universities who pay it a fee for sending international students to their campuses) and counsellor (helping students put together application packages) as well as a test conductor with coaching facilities.
Piyush Kumar, regional director (South Asia), IDP Education, said, “We have a proven track record of the highest data privacy standards. As student placement agents in India are well aware, we don’t share candidate data between IELTS and IDP’s student placement teams.” While most universities accept a range of English proficiency tests, some consulates accept IELTS only for particular visas.



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