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The following is issued on behalf of the University Grants Committee:
The University Grants Committee (UGC) announced today (October 3) the results of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) taken by final year students of UGC-funded undergraduate degree programmes under the 2010/11 Common English Proficiency Assessment Scheme (CEPAS).
About 12 400 final year students, or about 68 per cent of all full-time and part-time final year undergraduate students, participated in the 2010/11 round of CEPAS. This represents an increase of about 3 per cent in terms of the number of participants as compared with last year, and is a record high.
The average overall score attained by the students is 6.69 on a nine-point scale. About 84.8 per cent of the students attained a score in the 6-7.5 range, which means they are "competent" or "good" users of the English language in terms of the IELTS scoring system.
Among the four modules of the test, students did better in "reading" and "listening", scoring overall 7.31 and 7.19 respectively. Their average scores in "writing" and "speaking" are 5.99 and 6.04 respectively. Institutions are encouraged to utilise the CEPAS results with regard to their English language enhancement strategies and programmes.
Breakdowns of candidates' average scores by broad academic discipline and by institution are attached at Annexes A and B. Comparisons of the overall average scores in 2009/10 and 2010/11, broken down by broad academic discipline and by institution, are attached at Annexes C and D.
For the 2010/11 round of CEPAS, 40 testing sessions were held from July 2010 to May 2011. For the 2011/12 round of CEPAS, the registration period is from April 1 to 29, 2011 (Period 1) and September 1 to October 19, 2011 (Period 2). Students may continue to register online (www.ugccepa.com).
CEPAS is a voluntary assessment scheme intended to encourage students to be more aware of the importance of English proficiency, and to provide a common framework for assessing and documenting graduating students' English proficiency. IELTS has been adopted by the UGC as the main testing tool under CEPAS since 2002/03. Test fees are reimbursed once if students agree to reflect their participation in CEPAS in their transcript. The actual test score however will not be shown.
IELTS results are reported on a band scale from 0 to 9. Scores are reported in whole and half bands. According to the IELTS scoring system, candidates scoring Band 6 are considered competent users who have a generally effective command of the English language, despite some inaccuracies, while those scoring Band 7 are considered good users who generally handle complex language well.
An overall Band of 6.5 or above with no subtest score below Band 6 obtained in the same sitting in the Academic Module of IELTS within the two-year validity period is accepted as equivalent to a "Level 2" result in the Use of English paper in the Government's Common Recruitment Examination.
Ends/Monday, October 3, 2011
Issued at HKT 17:02
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