Tenure Track Position: English Language Test

Department Of Citizenship And Immigration Dept: “It certainly strikes me as ridiculous and a bit ludicrous,” Dr. Landreth said. “The irony of someone who’s immigrating to Canada to teach English being asked to take an English test is probably not lost on most people.”, according to Globe And Mail. Dr. Landreth, 30, has a tenure-track position at the University of Ottawa, where she has worked for the last year on a temporary permit. She is American by birth and moved to Canada after finishing her PhD at New York University. Her husband, James Brooke-Smith, a British citizen who also holds a PhD in English literature, has been working as a lecturer in Ottawa and will also have to take the test and she has a PhD in English literature. She has been hired to teach English literature to Canada’s budding scholars. Yet her application for immigration will not be processed unless she submits to a $280 English language test, thanks to a ministerial instruction signed by Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney last month. It might seem no more than a bureaucratic hassle, but critics say the decision runs roughshod over immigration law, which states that applicants don’t have to write the test if they can provide other evidence, in writing, of their proficiency in an official language. In response, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration said that in the past, written submissions had to be evaluated by immigration officers; an independently administered test will help prevent fraud and ensure a fair and transparent method of evaluation, a spokeswoman said. As reported in the news.
@t globe and mail, citizenship and immigration