The implied allegation is that the English language testing regime is susceptible to fraud.

Back in May the government’s announcement that the graduate route would stay after all was accompanied by news that the Home Office was reviewing English language assessments.

It said that its objective was to standardise independent assessments, ensuring all international students are equipped with the skills to understand their course materials – or “they shouldn’t expect a place at a UK university”.

A letter from Tom Pursglove, then Minister of State for Legal Migration and the Border to Diana Johnson (then Chair of the Home Affairs Committee) sais that the Home Office was intending to review how it assesses English Language standards for international students, with the objective of standardising independent assessment.

Now some detail has emerged via the Home Office’s procurement portal.

As it stands, English Language Testing is delivered by multiple concessionaires who are responsible for providing their version of the test, test facilities, and all associated services.

The notice says that the Home Office is planning to move away from a concession model and contract directly with suppliers in two service lines:

• The development, evaluation and ongoing support of a Home Office branded test to be used globally for all HOELTs
• The facilitation of tests globally, including a customer booking platform, test centre provision, invigilation, and ID-verification

This “new delivery model” for provision of English Language Testing services (value excluding VAT: a whopping £1.1bn) will see UKVI procure a dedicated test to be owned by the Home Office and used by all customers globally.

The chosen test developer will also be responsible for:

• Maintaining and updating the test
• Provision of a test delivery system which will assess a Customer’s English language ability
• Securely receiving test data from test centres, marking of the test and sending test results back
• Evaluating and moderating all tests taken
• Performing anti-fraud checks
• Gaining independent assurance of the test

Whether the process will fix whatever size and shape of problem is there remains to be seen – but it won’t fix the other end of the issue.

If you take an intensive driving course and then don’t get behind the wheel for months, you end up rusty at best. And I’ve now lost count of the number of international students’ union officers I’ve met who complain they were promised they would meet students from 150 countries or similar, only to find that they are surrounded by students from their own country both in accommodation and on their programme.

Even if they pass what will become their HOELT on the day, if little of their interaction (by day or night) is with English speakers, not only will they feel ripped off by the promises of the ability to globally network – the development of their English language skills will suffer.

Ideally, providers would be caused to work towards diversity measures inside cohorts when applying for their CAS allocation – and where not possible, providers would be working with their SUs to deliberately scaffold interaction between home and international students.

If the Pursglove letter is still the timeline, next up we will get:

• Summer 2024, a “rapid consultation” to ensure that international students currently at franchised providers are at “well-managed institutions” which meet the requirements of the Office for Students [maybe that’s taken place behind the scenes)
• September 2024, ensure overseas students are doing courses “where face to face teaching is the predominant method of delivery” [DK covered that in April)
• Autumn 2024, a “tougher sponsorship standard” for higher education institutions who wish to recruit international students.
• January 2025 intake, raise the financial maintenance requirements “in line with domestic maintenance loans” [whatever that means. If it matches home students’ entitlements, that’ll mean nobody can afford to study in the UK!)