This technical report presents the findings of a comprehensive research project to develop a methodology for appropriately linking UK examinations to the China Standards of English. This Executive Summary presents a brief overview of the background and methodology and the main linking results achieved for the two tests included in this project, Aptis and IELTS. For more comprehensive information, a detailed description of the CSE itself is presented in Section 4, the methodology employed is described in Section 5, and the key results and recommendations are described in Section 7 of the body of the report.
On 6 December 2016, Mr Chen Baosheng, China's Minister of Education, and Ms Justine Greening, the UK Secretary of State for Education, signed Action Plan under the UK–China Partners in Education Framework at the 4th Meeting of the China–UK High-Level People-to-People Dialogue in Shanghai, China. Strand 2 of the document states that to promote communication and alignment between the English proficiency standards of each country, China and the UK will conduct collaborative research on linking various UK English language tests to China's Standards of English Language Ability. The National Education Examinations Authority (NEEA), Ministry of Education, China and the British Council (BC) were appointed respectively to implement this joint program.
The collaborative research is a joint endeavour to strengthen UK–China cooperation, and support a golden era in UK–China relations. The IELTS and Aptis tests were chosen as the pilot projects to build a demonstration of best practice in terms of investigating the relationship between the CSE and language examinations.