Take IELTS test before going abroad on a scholarship, says officer in Oman

Muscat: Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Azri, Director of External Scholarships stressed the importance of students applying for external scholarships to undergo the IELTS test before travelling to the countries of scholarship.
He said that some countries link issuing the visa with passing the IELTS test, regardless of the marks obtained by the students, such as the United Kingdom, which requires since last year the IELTS UKVI for every student wants to study at the British universities.
Other universities require students to get a certain mark for a visa, such as the Dutch universities. Obtaining the required mark in the university’s specialisation, where the student will study, will help the student to directly start his academic major, while the students who fail to get the required mark will join a language course before joining their major.
He explained that most of the foreign higher education institutions require overall band 6 in IELTS to start the academic study, especially for undergraduate programmes.
The Director of External Scholarships added that students admitted to external scholarships for the academic year 2016/2017 in Malta, New Zealand, Australia, Poland and the Netherlands must provide a copy of the result of “IELTS academic” test while the students admitted to study in the United Kingdom must pass the IELTS UKVI test to be able to complete their scholarship procedures.
He affirmed that the ministry, in coordination with the British Council and other agencies in the Sultanate is giving them the priority in sitting for the test as seats are limited for such type of tests.