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The following is issued on behalf of the University Grants Committee:
The University Grants Committee (UGC) announced today (April 12) that almost 11 500 final year students of UGC-funded undergraduate degree programmes have registered for the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) under the 11th round of the Common English Proficiency Assessment Scheme (CEPAS).
"With the assistance of our institutions, the 11th round of registration for the Scheme in 2012/13 has been completed successfully. A total of 11 494 final year students have submitted their applications this time. Given the voluntary nature of CEPAS, the number of participants demonstrates that students continue to attach great importance to their English proficiency," said the Secretary-General of the UGC, Dr Richard Armour.
CEPAS was first launched in 2002/03. In the past years, participation grew steadily and stabilised in recent years, from around 7 300 final year students in 2002/03 to over 11 800 in 2011/12.
There are a total of 45 testing sessions in the 2012/13 round of CEPAS. To facilitate students' participation, online registration and summer test sessions have been made available to participants. In this round, over 99 per cent of students chose to register online. In addition, more than 4 100 students have registered to take part in the 18 summer testing sessions.
A breakdown of the number of participants by institution is in the Annex for reference.
Ends/Friday, April 12, 2013
Issued at HKT 17:00
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