An Ontario college that requested hundreds of international students applying from India be re-evaluated in English language proficiency says more than one-third of those retested require additional support.

Niagara College is now working “quite aggressively” with those students and reviewing whether admission criteria should be changed for each of its programs, says Steve Hudson, vice-president of academic and learner services.

“We will use these results to continue to review our English language admission criteria and to enhance the language supports for students,” said Hudson. “Our focus has been on trying to ensure our students can be successful and working with them, particularly, once they’ve arrived here with a very high commitment, knowing both the financial and emotional costs it takes to get the students here.”

Last fall, a school investigation revealed a high number of first-year international students who started in September were failing because their English skills weren’t at the required level. Most of them were from India, where they had successfully completed the IELTS test (the International English Language Testing System), which is accepted by most Canadian academic institutions and is one of two major English language tests used by Canada’s immigration department.

The college, which has campuses in Niagara-on-the-Lake and Welland, was concerned about the inconsistencies in language proficiency. So, in late November it requested that 428 students from India, who had applied to start school in January, be retested. Those students had undergone IELTS testing around the same time as many who had started in the fall and at the same testing site. Essentially, the school wanted to avoid another scenario, with students coming to Canada and being ill-prepared for school.

The IELTS test — owned by IDP Education, the British Council and Cambridge Assessment English — is a three-hour exam that assesses listening, reading, writing and speaking skills on a scale of 1 to 9. A score of 9 indicates the person is an “expert user” of the language. Each individual organization determines a pass score.

Niagara College requires an overall score of 6, with no test results below 5.5. A score of 6 signals a “competent user,” who has an effective command of English, but is subject to misunderstanding, making errors and using inappropriate words.

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Of the 428 students asked to undergo retesting, more than half chose not to, either because they had not gotten their student visas, or had accepted offers at other schools.

A total of 176 applicants were retested, and of these, 130 provided results to Niagara College. It’s unclear why 46 students retook the test and didn’t submit their scores, but it’s possible their visas were denied in the interim, said Hudson.

Based on results from those 130 students, about 10 per cent did not score high enough for admission into a post-secondary program at the college. Their acceptance was deferred for a later start date and they were redirected into the college’s English for Academic Purposes program to boost their language skills.

The remaining 90 per cent had scores that were consistent with prior results and are now in their post-secondary program. However, one-third of of them will receive additional English language support because there was more variance in their test results, yet they still demonstrated sufficient language proficiency.

When they were retested, in December, students either took the IELTS, the Pearson Test of English or the Oxford Placement Test, depending on what was available to them. That’s because some students were already in Canada, so they were tested here.

The college paid for the retesting, which cost between $10,000 and $15,000 in total. No student had an offer of admission rescinded based on the second round of tests and all 130 students started in January.

“Our objective was to make sure students had better information when they came in and … we would be in a position to better support the students on Day One,” said Hudson.

He says the school has been working “quite aggressively on the English language proficiency” with roughly 50 of those 130 students. In the coming months, the college will analyze whether the extra support was helpful.

Hudson says this experience has not shaken the college’s confidence in the IELTS as an ability to assess English language proficiency. But it has prompted the school to re-evaluate the criteria for language proficiency requirements in all of its programs to determine if changes are needed.

For instance, programs that require higher levels of English language skills, such as journalism and public relations, may come to demand an admission score of 7, 8 or 9; whereas carpentry and cooking programs, for example, may require a score of 6.

“We’re going through all of them (programs) right now,” he said. “The language proficiency testing … measures a number of different elements, so we have to look at all of those elements against the program requirements and see if we need to adjust those admission criteria to give the students better chances of being successful.”

In an earlier statement to the Star, Warwick Freeland, managing director of IELTS/IDP Education said IDP Education partners with a range of organizations who administer IELTS in 140 countries. He maintained that “IELTS is a secure and valid indicator of a candidate’s ability.”

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“All test centres are rigorously monitored to ensure they operate to the highest of standards,” he said.

According to the Canadian Bureau for International Education, there were 494,525 international students in Canada at all levels of study in 2017, a 17 per cent increase over the previous year. Some 123,940, or 25 per cent, of these students came from India, which made up the second largest contingent behind China.

At Niagara College, 2,914 of a total 4,683 international students come from India. Tuition fees for international students average $13,500, more than triple the amount their Canadian peers pay.

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