Encontré dos artículos de diferentes newpapers, que explican el porqué piden una band score de 7.0 en el IETLS. Es de interés, por lo menos para los contadores, espero que les sirva para entender las razones de tal exigencia.
Degrees still lure low-skill migrants
from The Australian
AUSTRALIA'S misguided trade in selling accounting degrees to migrants seeking permanent residency visas should be tightened up yet again and locals should be trained to fill severe shortages in the profession, says Monash University researcher Bob Birrell.
Dr Birrell, whose earlier work on the visas-for-degrees industry has inspired sharp debate and partial reform, will release this week new, more complete figures showing that more than a third of overseas students who secured visas as Australian-trained accountants had worryingly low English language skills.
"I regard the 2006-07 data as the best indication yet of the standards of Australian universities ... they're nowhere near the standards required by the profession," Dr Birrell told the HES.
In a paper to be published by People and Place journal, he and co-author Ernest Healy use updated figures and a new breakdown of nationality and occupation to show that accountancy as an easy route to permanent residence is especially attractive to the weaker English speakers among mainland Chinese students.
On the English language test known as IELTS, 45 per cent of mainland Chinese given visas as accountants did not manage a score of six (see tables, page 26). The percentage for mainland Chinese awarded visas across all university disciplines was 37 per cent while the figure for all nationalities given visas as accountants was 38 per cent.
Dr Birrell argues that even an IELTS score of six is not good enough for genuine university study while professions that take communication seriously demand a minimum score of seven, a standard adopted by large accounting firms such as KPMG.
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Migrant accountants fail English test
from The Sydney Morning Herald
OVERSEAS accountants are flocking to Australia under the skilled migration program but few pass the English requirements to work in the sector, leaving labour shortfalls unmet, a study into immigration policy has found.
There are now more overseas accountants gaining visas each year than there are domestic graduates in the field, a study in the upcoming edition of the People And Place quarterly journal has found.
But the occupation remains on the critical skills list because students using Australian accounting courses to gain permanent residency do not find work.
"The main reason is poor English skills," said the director of the Centre for Population & Urban Research at Monash University, Bob Birrell. Of the 9107 foreign accountants granted visas in 2007-08, more than two thirds studied at Australian institutions.
"The fact that such a large majority of overseas student graduates possess poor English indicates that Australian universities are conferring graduate credentials on students who do not have the skills needed to practise their profession," Professor Birrell said.
The study that Professor Birrell wrote with Ernest Healy uses the "abysmal" employment experience of overseas accountants, by far the largest group in the skilled migration program, to illustrate the program's shortcomings.
For example, the accounting firm KPMG said substandard English resulted in less than 1 per cent of former overseas student applicants landing a job in the company's entry level program.
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