I was sent the actual testimony of British Council CEO Scott McDonald before the Foreign Affairs committee.  The situation over at the BC seems even worse than the Times article made it out to be.  Here are a few highlights:

1. The British Council owes £200 million (from an original loan of £250 million) to the Foreign Office.  At the end of each year this loan is rolled over to the next year.  This is the reason for the regular delays in getting the British Council’s annual reports.  Regarding the delay, McDonald said:  “we cannot file our accounts until we have that rolled over, because without it we would be insolvent.”  This is the problem of the moment.

2. A lot of interest is paid.  Noted McDonald:  “Based on the way that it is structured at the moment, it is a high interest rate. It is pretty onerous. We pay £14 million a year in interest. Every year when we roll it over, there are a couple of million in admin costs for rolling it over.”

3. BC is seeking a 20-25 year repayment plan for the loan, beginning 2-4 years from now.

4. There are plans to reduce costs by £250 million over the next five years. So far, headcount has been reduced by 17%, and the BC has pulled out of 18 countries.  All back-office functions have been outsourced.

5. And BC’s IELTS operations in India have been sold. Regarding this sale:  “When we first took the loan, which was in the middle of covid, it was £250 million. The first thing we did was sell one of our really good businesses, the English assessment business in India, so we could pay back some of the money and show goodwill right away. We sold that business and paid back £50 million of the loan right away and brought it down to £200 million.

6. Aside from the loan, the BC gets £165 million yearly from the British government to support its operations.  They are asking for an additional £75 million (plus support on the loan).

7. Without the above bump-up (and loan support), the BC would likely pull out of 30-40 more countries.

8. There is a weird dance between McDonald and the Chair about why and how the BC was 53 million in the red post-Covid (‘22-’23).

9. Some of the BC art collection can be sold.  Some of the 40 buildings owned by the BC can also be sold.

10. McDonald:  “There is lots of organised crime that tries to access those [IELTS] exams.”

A startling article this week in the Times laid bare the precarious financial state of the British Council. The organization is seeking to sell assets – including its famous art collection – to repay  £200 million of debt, most of which appears to be owed to the UK’s Foreign Office.

According to CEO Scott McDonald, the British Council faces “a constant threat of insolvency.”  The Times notes that in addition to the possible sale of its massive art collection, its leadership is “eyeing up which of the organisation’s foreign outposts can be put on the market.”

This all comes as one of the British Council’s biggest revenue generators – the IELTS test – faces stiff competition from new test makers at home and abroad.  Some observers have suggested that competing test makers are somewhat more nimble and responsive to changes in technology and consumer tastes than the venerable IELTS partnership. Test volumes have also been impacted by the loss of longstanding monopolies in major score receiving markets.

Note that in 2021 the British Council sold its Indian IELTS operations to IDP Education for a cool £130 million (cash) and exited the testing industry in that key market. One wonders if similar deals could be reached in other important sending markets.

The British Council is not alone as it struggles with its finances.  Several of the so-called legacy English testing companies have faced tough times in recent years.  IDP Education announced massive layoffs in June of last year, while ETS offered buyouts to virtually every employee in the United States around the same time.

The British Council’s next annual report is due to be published by the end of this month, but it could be delayed.

Effective immediately, if you want to register for the IELTS paper test in a country you must be a resident of that country.  Exceptions are granted for individuals from countries where the IELTS is not offered, and those with refugee status. Per this notice from IDP India, exceptions may be granted for those in free-movement zones (for instance, residents of an EU country may be able to take the test in any EU member state).

The computer delivered IELTS is not impacted by this.  People can travel the globe to take that version of the test.

Some have speculated that this move is a response to the oft-rumored “IELTS Field Trip” wherein students from a certain country quickly pile into a test center where security of the paper-delivered test has been compromised.  If that is the case, perhaps it is time to retire the paper-delivered test altogether.

Below is a message that pops up when attempting to register for the test via the British Council.  Check the link above for additional details.

This article by Daniel Lam and Angela Gayton is the best thing I’ve read all year. It explores gaps in knowledge about what test scores mean and how they can and ought to be used.

The authors interviewed personnel at a number of universities and illuminating excerpts are shared. I’d like to paste all of the quotes here, but I’ll limit myself to just a few.

Said one program director:

“If you say 6 and then somebody says 6.5, what is the actual difference, other than [that] 6.5 sounds a bit better, or higher, or more proficient if you like? […] So yeah, to me, it’s a fairly heuristic kind of process. People just come up with a number that’s either traditional that they’ve experienced or heard of before. ‘Oh, if this programme has this number, then maybe our programme should have this number.’”

And one EAP coordinator:

“I just find that sometimes it’s not consistent. So sometimes an IELTS 5 for one student, that student does not have the same standard or level of English as another one with an IELTS 5. So there are discrepancies, and I don’t know where that comes from – whether it comes from the assessor who assessed them, or there’s something in the guidelines that allows this sort of discrepancy.”

And:

“Sometimes the language level is not too bad, but because there is nothing behind, like in the thought processes, […] the student doesn’t perform well. And sometimes I think departments may mistake it for language inadequacy, but I don’t think it always is.”

A program director noted:

“I do think someone with a good IELTS score that comes here is a good user of English. But they may not be a good user of the particular type of discourse on which they will be assessed, which is a completely different matter. And I think this expectation or understanding is not there.”

One interviewee “laments” how an IELTS score can be used to make up for a failed assessment in a pre-sessional EAP program.

I could go on! The authors note that some of the comments “reflect the complexity of disentangling general language proficiency from academic literacy skills, and point to the need for a more nuanced understanding of this relationship, as well as, again, what language test scores are (un)able to indicate.”

In light of the recent “File on Four” report, there has been much discourse about how some students lack the language skills needed to excel in their studies. Much has been said about possible cheating. The folks behind IELTS seem to think that acceptance of a wider range of tests is problematic. But the issue is obviously more nuanced. All test scores are valuable, but they have certain shared limitations. Perhaps in 2025, when test prep is more sophisticated than ever and cool down periods between tests have been largely eliminated, yet more attention should be paid to the limitations.

Scroll down to the “discussion” section for tips that university staff should keep in mind.