I think the PTE Academic Online was eliminated in December and I didn’t notice. Did anyone else notice? Was there an announcement?
I cannot register for the test via my Pearson account, and all references to it have been removed from the PTE website.
When I posted about this on LinkedIn, a connection wrote the following comment:
The Pearson Academic Online test started its discontinuation process way back in July 2023 (where test takers were reflected the booking appointments with a 60 day waiting time period, i.e. A test taker who logged into his portal to find the test dates in July 2023 was only able to book the test dates of September 2023).
During my conversation with one of their Business Development Manager (BDM) at an event in July 2023, I questioned them whether this was a bug and the possibilities of its resolution. To my surprise, the BDM said that PTE has decided to wrap up its at online tests in view of technical difficulties faced by test takers in terms of hardware (microphone and computer).
But the real story as per my opinion is that Pearson was well aware about the cheating malpractices that test-takers utilized to gain unfair advantage at their online tests. This was the time when Pearson Academic got its approval to be an accepted test for the Canadian SDS student visa pathway (August 2023) and I sincerely believe that in order to help the testing integrity and credibility of Pearson stay intact, they discontinued their testing programs.
Here’s the old PTE website (November, 2024):
Here’s the current website (February, 2025)
