Ministry of Education: IELTS is not part of the national education system

That is the content of Circular No. 16/2025/TT-BGDDT regulating the joint organization of foreign language proficiency certification exams, which has just been issued by the Ministry of Education and Training .

Circular No. 16/2025/TT-BGDDT takes effect from October 12, 2025, replacing Circular No. 11/2022/TT-BGDDT dated July 26, 2022 of the Minister of Education and Training regulating joint organization of foreign language proficiency certification exams.

One of the notable new points of the Circular is the concretization of the policy of promoting decentralization and delegation.

According to the Ministry of Education and Training, Decree No. 143/2025/ND-CP dated June 12, 2025 of the Government regulating decentralization and delegation in the field of state management of the Ministry of Education and Training has amended and supplemented a number of articles of Decree No. 86/2018/ND-CP, Decree No. 124/2024/ND-CP, assigning the Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee the authority to approve joint organization of foreign language proficiency exams.

Circular No. 16 emphasizes the requirement for the People's Committees of provinces and cities to manage the activities of organizing foreign language proficiency exams in the locality according to the Government's regulations; publicly announce and update on the electronic information page the list of units approved, adjusted, extended, and terminated to organize foreign language proficiency exams in the locality.

The new Circular also amends and supplements a number of other regulations to specify the responsibilities of state management agencies and strengthen the responsibilities of parties involved in testing and granting foreign language proficiency certificates.

At the same time, specify the responsibilities of the associated parties (in publicity, transparency, accountability to society, handling of questions, ensuring the rights of test takers...) in the process of implementing the association, organizing the exam, and granting certificates as a basis for state management agencies to conduct post-inspection.

Clear responsibility in organizing foreign language proficiency certification exams

According to the newly issued circular, the Vietnamese side is the joint testing organization - the testing facility in Vietnam - that has an agreement or cooperation contract with a foreign language proficiency assessment facility that is primarily responsible for organizing foreign language proficiency certification exams in Vietnam.

The foreign party is the foreign language proficiency certificate-issuing unit - the foreign language proficiency assessment facility responsible for and authorized to issue foreign language proficiency certificates or the foreign language proficiency assessment facility authorized or permitted by the foreign language proficiency certificate-issuing unit to organize exams and issue certificates.

According to Circular No. 16, foreign language proficiency certificates are legally recognized in the host country when the competent authority of that country permits the organization of the certificate examination; or are used to review immigration applications, naturalization, and grant entry visas to citizens of countries who want to settle, work, research, study, and recognize the achievement of input and output standards in training programs for international students in countries using the language used for the certificate examination as the official language.

Also according to the provisions of the above Circular, the approval of joint organization of foreign language proficiency certificates does not include the recognition of the levels of those foreign language proficiency certificates as equivalent to the levels of the 6-level Foreign Language Proficiency Framework for use in Vietnam in the national education system.

The Ministry of Education and Training assesses that with the above new points, Circular No. 16 is a step to complete the legal framework, increase transparency, clearly decentralize power and protect the rights of test takers in the joint organization of foreign language proficiency certification exams.