An interesting tidbit from the Australian Financial Review:
“A survey of 11,500 prospective, applied and current students by recruitment firm IDP Education found that there has been a sharp increase in the popularity of the US as news of more restrictive policies in Australia, as well as in Canada and in the UK, have started to influence decisions.
Jane Li, IDP Education’s area director for Australasia and Japan, said the US used to rank last on a preference list of four major student destinations but has now leapt to first. Canada has gone from first to last.”
What does this mean for the business of language testing? Well, you can expect DET’s volume to increase, as you don’t really need a TOEFL, IELTS or PTE score to study in the United States. As I’ve indicated here, I work closely with a decent number of students at very good universities in the USA and most of them applied using DET scores.
Perhaps it means a slight uptick in the use of TOEFL, as that test still has strong associations with schools in the USA.
\In any case, it certainly portends a decline in the use of the IELTS test. I think the importance of Canada to IDP’s business model cannot be overstated.