The Home Office (UK) has published its “Review of English Language Assessment Methods.”  It is a survey of higher-ed providers which asks questions about how they use and think about English language tests.  It was completed in the spring of 2025.

The results include some really useful data about which tests are accepted by the HEDs.  So we can see that IELTS is accepted by 97% of institutions, TOEFL (regular) at 89%, TOEFL (home) at 65%, Kaplan at 33% and Duolingo at 25%.

The data on test selection criteria is also useful, but maddeningly vague.  It is great to know that 97% of institutions really care about test quality and that 95% care about security.  But how do they do this?  Here’s a quote from one respondent:

“We investigate whether the test covers all 4 language components and also consider assessment rigour (for example, length of the written test). We also look at how the test provider has benchmarked their test results against CEFR. We also ask for information about how the test provider deals with test taker breaches (and potential breaches). All tests are examined by the Head of Centre for International English.”

Checking that tests cover all four skills is a good start, at least.

One of the things I’ve been stressing in recent posts is that people working for HEDs must work hard to stay informed of some of the finer points regarding security and validity. Doing so ensures that they stay on even keel with test providers who have a financial interest in getting their tests accepted.

For instance, when approached by a prospective test provider they might ask for specific details about how a second camera works during an at-home test delivery.  Or about how their secure browser works. Or about how many people each online proctor supervises at the same time. Or, when it comes to validity, about how the test is actually scored. And how many people (if there are any people at at all) score each response.

This is not to say that the individuals surveyed here are under informed.  But I think you know what I’m getting at here. Tests are very complicated business nowadays. I would love a survey that asks pointed questions about whether respondents possess the background knowledge to make the best possible decisions.

The last thing you want, as a HED, is to be bowled over by a smooth-talking salesperson from a non-SELT provider (think: Springfield and the monorail). Or, worse yet, by one from a SELT provider who wants the industry to stay frozen in 1989 forever and ever (think: Han Solo at the end of “Empire”).

I saw that ETS Capital has announced the existence of a new advisory board, which features some high profile names.  The board will play a role in efforts to “scale ETS Capital’s investment and M&A platform,” according to director Emal Dusst.

Longtime ETSologists know that ETS Capital is the in-house investment arm of the Educational Testing Service.  It was founded using part of the proceeds of ETS’s one billion dollar sale of Prometric in 2018.  It has been somewhat quiet of late, perhaps because much of that money has been spent on investments (530 million to buy PSI, an estimated 12 million to buy Wheebox, an estimated 22 million to buy Kira Talent, alongside minority stakes in ApplyBoard, MPOWER Finance, CollegeDekho, LeverageEDU, etc).

If ETS Capital is scaling up, perhaps management is confident that more funds are forthcoming.  We may be quite close to the sale of the TOEFL and GRE tests, as indicated a few days ago in the Wall Street Journal.

If time permits, I’ll write a “how we got here” post about the potential sale of these products. The modern-day history (from the late 90s to the present) of ETS is fascinating and hasn’t been covered as much as the early history of the organization.  Given the tenor of my posts here (and elsewhere) over the past six years one might view such a sale as inevitable.  That’s a fair perspective, but I don’t think things necessarily had to go this way.  In any case, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that ETS has held talks to sell both the TOEFL and GRE tests.  The non-profit is reportedly seeking a purchase price of about 500 million USD, or a for-profit partner who might invest (but not purchase outright) the tests.

According to the WSJ’s report, ETS “has narrowed the talks to several firms that could potentially buy the exams or act as a strategic investor to expand ETS’s reach into the Middle East and India, said people familiar with the matter.”

As for potential buyers, “[i]nterested parties include the Singapore-based investment firm Hillhouse, the private-equity firms Nexus Capital and Veritas Capital and the education entrepreneur Martin Basiri, some of the people said.”

ETS CEO Amit Sevak has declined to comment.

Regular readers know that Nexus Capital recently purchased the ACT test from its non-profit owner for about 240 million dollars.  Veritas Capital, meanwhile, purchased the assets of non-profit testing giant NWEA for about 890 million dollars. Martin Basiri, of course, is the co-founder of the fairly successful Canadian firm ApplyBoard (which everyone reading this is quite familiar with)  and more recently an admissions-related company called Passage (which we are all much less familiar with).

Most astute test watchers are well aware that we’ve been on the path to such a move for a very long time.  The dominance of both tests has been eroded since the pandemic years, while ETS itself has experienced financial woes that have necessitated several rounds of layoffs and buyouts. Several much smaller testing products have already been eliminated from the organization’s portfolio.

I’ll have more to say on this topic in the days ahead, I’m sure.

Jia Peng, 24, has been sentenced to three months imprisonment in Hong Kong for cheating on the TOEFL.  Jia was the “other dude” I mentioned in a post a few days ago about another case of cheating in Hong Kong.

According to court records, Jia hired a convincing lookalike to take the TOEFL for him at a test center in Malaysia.  It appears, as in the earlier case, that the scheme was uncovered by the university sometime after a score report was submitted.

I spoke yesterday with a source who has experience being locked up in Hong Kong. They described conditions in the city’s jails as “pretty spartan,” with inmates being kept two to a cell.  The same source described the food served to prisoners as “not bad.”

A point I’ve been trying to make here is that some test makers might insist that their on-site tests are far more secure than at-home tests offered by their competitors… all while not being fully aware of exactly how many people are cheating on those on-site administrations.

We are in the era of the new TOEFL.  A few notes:

1. As expected, the old TOEFL will live on as “TOEFL iBT Australia” for those headed down under.  I understand that scores can only be sent to institutions in that country.  It could take some time for the new version to be approved by the Australian DHA.
2. TOEFL TestReady lives on as a means of selling prep only for “TOEFL iBT Australia.”  As announced earlier, it is no longer used to supply prep for the new TOEFL.
3. Accordingly, there is far less free prep available than before.  Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but as I understand it there are no longer any free graded tests available for the new version. There are plenty of paid options, though.
4. ETS is no longer advertising an updated “Official Guide to the TOEFL.”  Instead, they are advertising an “Official Guide to the TOEFL iBT Test: Pocket edition” (coming soon).  This product  is described as a “time-limited digital release.”  I’m not sure what that means.  Amazon still has a full official guide listed for a late-May release.  No sign of updated “Official Tests” books, though.

I’ll take the new test when I return home in a few weeks. Probably at a test center.