Talk to someone who is thinking about immigrating or studying abroad and ask them to point out a necessary step in the entire selection process that they would like to skip. Most of them will surely reply that they would prefer to escape the IELTS test, if possible. This is because the IELTS test not only adds additional expenses to your immigration procedure, but also requires you to spend a good amount of time preparing for the test. In immigration to certain destinations and under some specific programmes, such as Australia’s General Skilled Migration Scheme, immigration programs require both the main applicant and her spouse to also take the IELTS test. While this makes the immigration process more expensive and difficult, applicants are unaware of the fact that the IELTS test is for their benefit only. Read on and find out how.

It is unfair?

There are applicants who excel in the occupational field of their specialization and find it unfair that the decision on their immigration application depends not only on their occupational excellence but also on their language skills. This is based on the observation that others who might not have achieved the same level of occupational excellence as yours, but who are fluent in the English language, are easily granted immigration visas.

Students planning to study abroad have the same concerns. In his opinion, the deciding factor for course and university selection should be the grades obtained by them at their school or university level and IELTS puts them at a disadvantage against others who have better language skills.

Importance of the 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 should applicants go through the grueling IELTS preparation process and spend a lot of funds to take these tests? More importantly, what we need to think about is, why aren’t options provided for applicants who can’t qualify through this test?

Previous system of assessment of English language skills

The reason is that English language skills have always been a key selection criteria in the points-based system, from the very beginning. In the past, immigration officers used to conduct one-on-one interviews to judge the applicant’s English language skills and decide how many points they would like to credit the applicant.

But this type of system created animosities and unfair situations, both for the visa processing office and for immigration applicants. There are several reasons why this system of assessing applicants’ language skills is replaced by the IELTS test.

First, immigration processing delays skyrocketed, as visa officers must conduct all interviews individually to make a decision on each applicant. When viewed in the context of queues of thousands of applicants, this means years of additional processing delays. Second, this made the assessment of language skills highly subjective, as it was based on the understanding of the visa officer conducting the interview.

Furthermore, by conducting such one-on-one interviews, the immigration applicant could not be assessed in all key areas of language proficiency, including understanding, reading, speaking, and listening.

IELTS Introduction

Therefore, the need was felt for an objective test that would be a standardized benchmark and internationally acceptable assessment tool. Standardization was very important to provide equal opportunities to all applicants. Therefore, IELTS became an integral part of the immigration process and applications, especially for Skilled Professionals, Independent Immigration, Skilled Migrants in general, and in some cases also for Green Card visa applications. The IELTS test is therefore based on the assessment of the applicant’s abilities in all four components of the language, including speaking, listening, understanding and reading.

Therefore, IELTS also becomes an important requirement for students who choose to study abroad in most popular destinations such as Canada, Australia, UK, USA and New Zealand. Language is clearly a key 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 international language accents.

For students who are not very fluent in the language, it can literally become a nightmare when they arrive at a course and a university where they cannot understand the instructions and cannot communicate with the professors and the rest of the peer group. Add to that the expenses of staying away from home along with expensive education abroad.

The IELTS test, therefore, gives all immigrants the opportunity to avoid such a difficult situation and check their language ability levels, before selecting the course and university to study abroad. Most international educational institutions offer language development courses for international students who are not very fluent in the language. Students may first take such basic and language development courses for a specified period and then are allowed to enter the course of their choice.

Therefore, the IELTS test is an objective English language assessment tool that is internationally acceptable to both government and immigration educational institution agencies. Therefore, it has become an essential part of the immigration visa process and for study abroad applicants. Therefore, the applicant is advised to prepare well, if he wishes to earn some points by scoring well in various test modules. Seeking the advice of an immigration expert is a wise decision to guide your IELTS preparation, as well as your immigration process in general.