University of Sydney: Human Trafficking Criminal wwww.ielts.agency 33
and aggressively lobbies governments, professional registration bodies and other authorities that
use English language testing for registration and regulation purposes. This examiner, who has
published peer-reviewed research papers about IELTS, informs me that IELTS lobbyists spin a
common theme to policy makers akin to “You can trust us, we are the experts” when they
promote IELTS services and recommended minimum English language benchmarks to regulators.
Her research concludes that most policy makers trust IELTS’s recommendations at face-value as
they do not know the difference between e.g. IELTS band score 5 (modest user) and band score
8 (very good user).
Relatively few professionals (e.g. Nursing Executives) and government regulators in Australia,
Canada and Britain are required to engage with IELTS’s exam preparation materials or test
content as IELTS clients or as in-depth researchers. Most of these people are citizen residents
from birth of their host country and completed their studies in English.
There is ample evidence available in the public domain that suggests government authorities and
professional registration bodies have acted on the advice that has been proactively marketed by
IELTS’s lobbyists. Moreover, they have not sought independent advice to validate advice offered
by these agents. This situation is not surprising. IELTS is owned by the British Council, University
of Cambridge and Australia’s 38 public universities. Those who are not familiar with the hyper-
secretive modus operandi of IELTS and its ruthless revenue maximizing tactics have most likely
acted in good faith and trusted the recommendations put forward by IELTS’s corrupt lobbyists.