This month saw the business licences of 239 immigration consultants and 129 IELTS preparation centres in the Punjab region of India revoked. None of these institutions had any official connection with IELTS.
This came after a crackdown on gangs that claimed to provide answers to IELTS questions to candidates during exams. One of them, according to The Indian Express, is Gurbhej Singh, who owns the Master IELTS and Immigration Centre in Muktsar, claimed to have access to access to the exam papers, and that he would work out the answers and send them through to his accomplices via WhatsApp, Bluetooth and other electronic means. These would then be further passed on to the candidates, who would be charged for the information.
The scams were discovered when the hardware – Bluetooth ear buds, for example – were discovered on candidates inside the exam rooms.
The IELTS exam results are important as they are used by a number of English-speaking countries, including the UK and Canada, for immigration and study purposes,
