The UK Home Office has recently announced that its contract with the Educational Testing Service (ETS) for test center authorization was terminated on April 6 of this year. As a result, the UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) has suspended the acceptance of tests administered by ETS as proof of English language proficiency for new visa applicants. This regulation directly impacts students who have already secured admission to UK institutions using TOEFL scores and intend to submit visa applications this year; it may also indirectly affect students planning to apply to both UK and US institutions in the future. For the sake of security, Jinjilie study abroad experts recommend that students promptly switch to other Secure English Language Tests (SELT) explicitly recognized by the UK, such as IELTS or the Pearson Test of English (PTE) Academic.
The PTE Academic test is a new generation of computer-based international academic English tests, jointly developed and hosted by Pearson and the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), the organization behind the GMAT. PTE Academic provides institutions that require academic English proficiency—such as universities, higher education institutions, and government departments—with a tool to accurately measure candidate ability, offering a new option for students from non-English speaking countries who need to pass an English test to pursue study opportunities in English-speaking nations. Since its launch in 2009, the test has been accepted and recognized by nearly 3,000 universities across 32 countries.
