According to recent report, the Educational Testing Service (ETS) has been ordered to pay Rs 76,000 to a would-be test taker in Hyderabad. The test taker, M. Kiran Sumedha Gupta, registered for the test using her Aadhaar Card, but was denied the opportunity to take the test when she failed to produce a passport on test day.
According to the Siasat Daily:
“[The Hyderabad District Consumer Commission-3], after examining the case, noted that ETS’s own registration system, which accepts Aadhaar as a valid ID, created confusion for the candidate. It held that charging a high fee without giving clear, consistent guidelines and then refusing to help even after a formal complaint amounted to a deficiency in service. The Commission also observed that this denial caused the student to lose academic opportunities and suffer mental agony.”
I’ve long argued that test companies should always strive to provide “clear, consistent guidelines” (a bold position, I know). ETS’s defence in this case is that guidelines regarding ID are listed in the TOEFL Bulletin. That’s certainly true, but requiring test takers to pore over 45 pages of small print to find certain critical information might not be the clearest possible approach.
I suppose it is worth reminding readers that ETS stopped accepting the Aadhaar Card on test day around April of 2023. But for about twelve months following that policy change, the official TOEFL website for India continued to state that it was accepted. I believe that error was corrected when I drew attention to it in May of 2024 (which means it wasn’t a factor in this particular case, as it involved a July registration).