TOEFL iBT Approved For Canada’s Higher Learning Institutions

The Educational Testing Service (ETS) today announced that the TOEFL iBT test has been approved by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) for use in Canada’s Student Direct Stream (SDS).

SDS is an expedited study permit processing programme for those international students who plan to enroll in one of Canada’s post-secondary designated learning institutions.

Following this announcement, students can now begin sending TOEFL iBT scores as part of their SDS application beginning from August 10, 2023. The ETS claims that according to the IRCC, as long as all eligibility requirements are met, most SDS applications are processed within 20 calendar days.

“The TOEFL iBT test is already accepted by 100% of Canadian universities and is also the world’s most widely accepted English-language test, used by more than 12,000 institutions in more than 160 countries worldwide,” ETS added.

In addition to TOEFL iBT, Pearson Test of English Academic (PTE Academic) test has also been approved for Canada’s SDS scheme.

This update comes a little after ETS had recently announced few updates in the TOEFL iBT test. As per the revised format, the TOEFL iBT test has been shortened by an hour, and will now take less than two hours to complete — earlier it was for a duration of three hours.

Additionally, test will now have a new, more modern ‘Writing for an Academic Discussion’ task. This will replace the previous independent writing task. The reading section has also been shortened and all unscored test questions have also been removed. Updated versions of the TOEFL iBT free practice test and TOEFL iBT practice sets are also available on the TOEFL website.