UK for allegedly cheating in an English language test

GBNEWS24DESK//

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.”

The BBC 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.

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.

The chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Labour MP Meg Hillier, told the BBC: “Given what you found, I think the Home Office can no longer rely on this ETS data.”

Dame Meg said the government’s actions have created “huge injustice” and it should now drop outstanding legal action against alleged cheats, most of whom came to Britain as international students. She suggested they should instead be allowed to sit fresh English tests for new visas.

Wahidur Rahman, who won a seven-year battle to overturn the Home Office’s allegations against him, said: “They should hang their heads in shame for not apologising, not just to me but all the other innocent students.”

Many alleged cheats were thrown out of Britain without any opportunity to challenge or even see the evidence against them.

The Home Office simply cancelled their visas, with no right to appeal in Britain.

Nomi Raja was 22 when immigration officers raided his student house in June 2014. “They asked me for my ID. Then this guy had a radio and he was like: ‘Target achieved.'”

Only when he arrived at a detention centre at Gatwick Airport did an officer reveal why he had been arrested: “She’s like, ‘You’ve done Toeic, you have cheated and then we are sending you back to Pakistan’.” Toeic -Test of English for International Communication – was the name of the exam set by ETS.