The English Test That Ruined Thousands Of Lives. 

News Source:- A BBC investigation has raised fresh doubts about the evidence used to throw thousands of people out of the UK for allegedly cheating in an English language test.

Whistleblower testimony and official documents obtained by Newsnight reveal the Home Office has continued to try to remove people based on the claims of the international testing organisation ETS – despite knowing of serious concerns about its conduct and flaws in its data.

More than 2,500 people were deported and at least 7,200 more were forced to leave Britain after ETS accused them of cheating in an exam it set and marked. Others who remain in the UK continue to fight to clear their names after enduring years of hardship.

The crackdown was sparked by a 2014 BBC Panorama investigation that revealed two London test centres were running fraudulent exams so people could falsely obtain a pass they could use to apply for a visa.

Following those revelations, the government asked ETS to assess the scale of student cheating across more than 100 independent centres, which were contracted as test venues.

ETS gave them a massive list of alleged cheats – but despite proof that this included some innocent people who had been wrongly accused, the Home Office continues to stand by ETS’s evidence.

Labour MP Stephen Timms said: “Clearly, ETS was a discredited witness and yet the Home Office relied on them totally.”

Newsnight has also uncovered further evidence – much of which has been known to the department for several years – which raises additional questions about why ETS has been trusted to investigate what went on.

In the new investigation – by the same journalists who exposed the original fraud – the BBC can reveal:

• Past and present ETS staff told the Home Office they had found significant evidence of organised cheating almost two years before it was exposed by Panorama
• They told Home Office investigators their efforts to close some fraudulent test centres were blocked by managers who were worried test fee income would fall
• From these accounts, the Home Office learned it had been kept in the dark about the fraud
• Investigators were also given eyewitness testimony that some tests were faked with a method known as “remote testing”, which lawyers believe undermines ETS’s evidence. Read More.