Are English language tests still relevant for UK higher education purposes?

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This blog was written by Professor Susan Lilico Kinnear, Head of International Communication at the University of Dundee.

Universities across the UK are reexamining their English language entry requirements as questions of fairness, adequacy and student success become more pressing. The pandemic has reshaped the global testing landscape and new commercial entrants have emerged to meet surging demand. But are all these tests, and the way organizations use them, actually serving their purpose?

Return student to center

The motivation for the three-year study, a collaboration between the University of Dundee, the University of Cambridge, the British Council, Cambridge University Press and an assessment agency, was simple. It was about putting students at the center of language testing.

We sought to explore the experiences of different stakeholders in the language testing sector amid growing concerns from academics and others about the English standards demonstrated by incoming international students during and after the pandemic (Bruce et al, 2025). Our findings, which include data from the UK, Canada and other institutions, reveal ongoing concerns among front-line faculty not only about English standards, but also about the welfare and well-being of students who are unable to cope with the demands of their courses and the circumstances in which they find themselves. These concerns are combined with growing frustration with testing bodies that do not collaborate with academic stakeholders or understand how language standards impact classroom practice.

Misunderstood Ecosystem

We believe that exam providers who do not communicate with academic stakeholders demonstrate a lack of understanding of the ecosystem in which they operate. There are several parts to this system. The customers of language testing providers are prospective students. Testing providers provide a service to universities, but the ‘end users’ of this service are faculty who rely on the quality of language tests once their students arrive in the classroom.

Therefore, language testing is part of an ecosystem rather than simply a product or service provided to individuals. However, few testing providers understand these dynamics. The result is a commercial model in which universities, academics, and, by extension, students, are often passive recipients rather than partners in defining standards.

imbalance of power

What this study also reveals is a striking imbalance of power. At the faculty level, staff expressed extreme dissatisfaction with the language skills of many new students, but felt powerless to raise these concerns because they were often excluded from the decision-making process about passing exams.

At the same time, the HE community itself lacks language assessment skills (LAL). Our research shows that only 19% of UK universities invest in any form of LAL training for staff who determine admission criteria. Many said they relied heavily on claims of equivalency in marketing materials provided by testing companies and were unsure whether they were ready to make an informed decision about which test to accept.

At the university policy level, there is often a lack of understanding of the differences between placement tests, which are used to measure proficiency for low-stakes purposes such as identifying application needs, and academic readiness tests, which are used to determine whether a student meets the admission criteria for degree-level study. As a result, there is a lack of understanding of the costs of the various supports and resources that students admitted through these distinct pathways may require.

It is international students who are caught in the middle of these competitive forces.

But when we presented our findings to testing providers, their reactions were impressive. Some questioned the methodology rather than engaging with the message. Their response reflects deeper-rooted challenges to sector integrity. The financial and political imperatives of global testing overshadow the educational mission of universities and ultimately the student experience.

the cost of being wrong

This is not a niche academic problem. English language testing has become a multi-billion pound global industry, its influence reaching directly to the heart of university classrooms. However, the consequences of using tests that are inadequate for high-risk purposes are rarely measured in economic terms.

Universities invest heavily in international recruitment and agent commissions, but rarely quantify the cost of failure for students – the staff time spent on applications, appeals or mitigation, or the student’s human costs, as well as the resulting reputational damage. Pouring millions of dollars into the recruiting pipeline to admit only students who lack the linguistic preparation to succeed is a false economy.

Reallocating even a small portion of these expenditures to high-priority language support and staff training can yield much larger returns in student progress, satisfaction, and institutional integrity.

Towards a more responsible model

English language testing must evolve from a transactional model to a shared responsibility model. Universities should require transparency about validity and comparability data from test providers, integrate pre-arrival and on-site language support as part of their obligations to students, and invest in language assessment capacity for stakeholders who need to make informed decisions.

At the same time, commercial testing providers must demonstrate a much more nuanced understanding of the ecosystems in which they operate, work with academia to focus much more on what universities actually need from language testing, and work with universities to create meaningful training for employees rather than mere marketing brochures.

Ultimately, the cost of inaction is borne by students, not institutions or test providers. People who have invested their hopes and futures in a system that should serve them better.

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