Anhui province to drop Public English Test System
Take me away, mom Animals on the Road	“Water Margin” on eggs Cat the occupier Adorable animals pose like stars Cuddle up together, battling against blizzard Sunshine in the life

 

National English tests will adopt new rating system. [File photo: Shanghai Observer]

East China's Anhui province will become the first province in China to drop the national Public English Test System (PETS), starting next year, reports anhuinews.com.

PETS is a five-level system for people with various educational backgrounds working in a wide range of industries in different positions.

It is speculated that Anhui will become one of the pilots to apply a new national English proficiency testing and rating system next year.

The new system, which assesses English proficiency from a low to high level with nine grades, will offer a consistent standard for English teaching and learning in China and match mature English teaching and evaluation systems around the world.

Each grade will have its own requirements for language skills, including listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating, China Daily reports.

Lin Huiqing, China's vice-minister of education, announced last month that the new rating system will be officially released next year, and a detailed plan about the national English tests will be carried out step by step before 2020.

This accords with 2014 government guidelines to establish a better assessment system on foreign language proficiency.

Besides PETS, major English testing systems currently in China include College English Test CET 4 and CET 6, Test for English Majors, Business English Certificate exam as well as English exam for job promotion.

However, there's no integrated national standard to assess the performance of the 300 million English learners in China.

It is expected that more provinces will abandon the current English testing systems soon.

Author： 　　　Source：CRI　　　 Editor：Yang Fan