Vietnam's Ministry of Education and Training has proposed to revise university admissions rules from 2027. One of the most closely watched proposals is that universities may no longer be allowed to set their own bonus points for IELTS, academic competition awards and some other achievements.

One thing should be clear from the start: The proposal does not mean IELTS would be removed from university admissions. Under the draft, foreign-language certificates could still be converted into foreign-language subject scores in an admissions combination or used to prove entry requirements for programs taught in a foreign language. And as I write this, the rules are still a draft under consultation.

When I read the news, my first reaction was not "keep it" or "get rid of it." Perhaps that is because I look at this issue more from the perspective of assessment. The first question I want to ask is: When we admit a student to university, what are we actually trying to measure?

Starting with that question takes some of the heat out of the debate over whether people support or oppose IELTS. I think it also makes the discussion more useful. When we admit a student to university, what are we actually trying to measure?

First, what does IELTS actually measure? In assessment, there is a basic concept called construct. Put simply, it is the ability or attribute that a test is designed to measure.

For IELTS, the core construct is English language proficiency. The test provides information about a candidate's ability to listen, read, write and speak in English.

Consider a fairly easy-to-understand case.

A student has an IELTS score of 7.0 or 7.5 and applies to an International Business program taught mainly in English.

In this case, IELTS gives the university information that directly relates to the student’s studies: Does the student have enough English to follow lectures, read course materials, take part in discussions and write in an English-speaking academic environment? In assessment terms, there is a clear connection between the construct being measured and the actual demands of the program.

If English is a skill that a program genuinely requires, asking for evidence of that skill makes perfect sense. But let’s change the situation slightly.

Another student also has an IELTS score of 7.5 but applies to a program where English is not a core ability in the admissions process. If that certificate is turned into bonus points that raise the student’s total above another candidate's, we can ask: Does stronger English actually mean this student is a better fit for the program?

If that question has no convincing answer, I think we should be cautious about treating IELTS as an achievement that can be added to every admissions calculation.

To me, this is an important distinction: One thing is to use IELTS as evidence of a skill that a program genuinely requires. Another is to use IELTS as a reward that raises an applicant's admissions score.

They may sound similar, but from an assessment perspective, they are not the same. If IELTS has already been counted once, should it be counted again? One issue raised by the Ministry of Education is that the same ability may currently be recognized more than once: A foreign-language certificate is used in admissions and also generates additional bonus points.

A woman writes on a notebook next to a cup printed with "IELTS". Illustration photo by Unsplash

I think that is a reasonable question to ask. For example, if IELTS is converted to replace the foreign-language score in an admissions combination and the same certificate then generates additional bonus points, the same piece of evidence is effectively creating two advantages.

In assessment, this can be understood as something close to double counting. The issue is not whether IELTS is "good" or "bad." The issue is how much weight one ability carries in the final decision and whether that weight is appropriate.

That leads to another question that I think should not be ignored: Do IELTS and the English exam in the national school curriculum actually measure the same thing?

I do not think the answer is a simple yes. One is an international language proficiency test. The other is an exam designed within the context of the national school curriculum. Their purposes, content, difficulty and interpretation of results are not exactly the same.

So even if bonus points disappear while IELTS can still be converted into an English subject score, the system still has to answer a significant question: What is the basis for saying that an IELTS score of X.X is equivalent to Y points in an admissions combination?

Creating a conversion table is easy. The difficult part is showing that the table has a sound basis. This is where comparability and validity become important. Does removing bonus points automatically make admissions fairer? This is where I think we need to be most careful.

One reason mentioned in the draft is that access to IELTS and achievements that can bring bonus points is not equal among students.

There is a basis for that argument because IELTS is not a low-cost exam. A student living in a major city who can study with good teachers, access learning materials easily, use English regularly and take the test several times is clearly in a different position from a student without those opportunities.

This brings us to two familiar concepts in education: equality and equity. Applying the same rule to everyone does not necessarily mean everyone starts from the same position.

But I also do not think we should jump to the opposite conclusion that removing IELTS bonus points will make admissions fair. IELTS is only one of many factors affected by socioeconomic conditions.

Access to tutoring, preparation for the high school graduation exam, preparation for competency assessment tests, opportunities to attend good schools, the learning environment at home, parents' educational backgrounds and the learning resources available to a student can all affect admissions outcomes.

In other words, removing one type of bonus point may reduce one source of advantage. It does not automatically solve the fairness problem across the entire system. Fairness in assessment is always more complicated than a single policy change.

What about academic competition awards? If we ask the same question about those awards, the issue becomes even more interesting.

Suppose a student wins a national prize in Biology and applies to a Biotechnology program. In this case, the achievement gives us quite a lot of information about the student's academic ability in a field directly related to the program they want to study.

But what if the same Biology award earns bonus points when the student applies to a completely unrelated field? The question then is not really "Should academic competition awards receive bonus points?" It should be: What does this achievement tell us about the student’s ability to succeed in the program they are applying to?

I think this is an important distinction. We can view admissions as a system in which students accumulate as many achievements as possible. We can also look at it another way: Every piece of information included in an admissions profile should tell us something meaningful about the student’s fit with the program.

A student who wins a national prize is clearly an accomplished student. But an admissions system still needs to ask: In what field is that ability? At what level? And how does it relate to the program the student is applying to? That is the difficult part.

What I most want to see is data.

Throughout this debate, what I care about most is seeing the data. The ministry says that among high-scoring applicants, even a relatively small number of bonus points can change admission outcomes, while there is not yet evidence that those bonus points better reflect a student’s academic potential. From an assessment research perspective, this is exactly when we need empirical evidence.

For example, how is IELTS related to students’ ability to use academic English after entering university? Do students with higher IELTS scores actually perform better on academic tasks in English? How are subject-specific academic competition awards related to academic performance in corresponding university programs? How well do high school graduation exam scores predict first-year academic performance?

How much additional information do competency assessment tests provide beyond school records or high school graduation exam scores? In assessment, a related concept here is predictive validity, which simply refers to how well an assessment result can predict a particular outcome in the future.

Even here, though, we need to be careful. If someone asks, "Do high IELTS scores lead to higher university GPAs?", the question itself has a problem. IELTS was never designed to predict a student’s entire university academic performance. GPA is also affected by subject knowledge, motivation, self-directed learning, financial circumstances, health, teaching quality and many other factors.

If we want to assess the role of IELTS, we should probably look at outcomes closer to what IELTS actually measures: the ability to read academic materials in English, follow lectures, take part in discussions, write academic papers or study in programs where English is the language of instruction.

If IELTS predicts these abilities well, we have a fairly clear reason to use it where English proficiency is genuinely required. Conversely, if a criterion creates a major admissions advantage while much of that advantage comes from access to resources and the criterion adds little useful information to the selection decision, then it is reasonable to reconsider its role.

What worries me most is seeing decisions that affect hundreds of thousands of students based mainly on impressions. The higher the stakes, the stronger the evidence behind the decision needs to be.

Perhaps IELTS should return to its proper role. I teach IELTS. Perhaps that is why I do not want to see IELTS reduced to a number added to an admissions profile.

I do not think the greatest value of IELTS lies in whether a student can receive an additional 0.5, 1 or 1.5 points.

If a student is about to enter a program taught in English, they will have to read a textbook, listen to a lecture, write an academic paper, take part in discussions and perhaps work in an international environment later on.

What matters then is not the certificate itself but the English ability behind it. When IELTS becomes a kind of "currency" in university admissions, the motivation for learning can easily change. Instead of asking, "How good does my English need to be for me to study effectively?", students may end up asking, "How many bands do I need to get bonus points?"

The two questions may seem close, but they lead to very different ways of learning. So if a policy change gradually brings IELTS back to its role as a proficiency test, I think that is something worth considering.

That does not mean IELTS should disappear from university admissions. For a program that genuinely requires students to use English at a high level, asking for evidence of English proficiency makes perfect sense. The issue is not whether IELTS appears in university admissions. The issue is where IELTS appears, what it is used for and how it is used.

Assess the right construct, for the right purpose, in the right place. Assess the right ability, for the right purpose, and put the assessment result in the right place.