For the last three months, Nepali student Pallawi Gupta has been trying to take the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), which is an admission requirement for foreign students applying to colleges and universities in the Untied States, but to no avail.

According to Thursday's report of eKantipur.com, a local media group's website, the United States Education Foundation (USEF) in Kathmandu, the only center that hosts computer-based TOEFL in Nepal, has halted TOEFL registration since June this year. The center used to conduct TOEFL every business day.

Like Pallawi, a teenager, hundreds of Nepali students bracing for the TOEFL may have to wait till January next year for the TOEFL registration to resume in Nepal (except for paper-based TOEFL).

Though there are four centers for paper-based TOEFL in Nepal, these tests are held only six times a year and the seats are limited.

According to the USEF in Kathmandu, the TOEFL registration has been halted at the USEF as the Education Testing Service (ETS), the U.S. education body which conducts TOEFL, is replacing the computer-based TOEFL system with Internet-based system in Nepal. For this purpose the ETS decided to halt the computer-based TOEFL from August here. Later on, the ETS extended the date by a month, pushing the last date for TOEFL in Nepal till September.

"We have halted the TOEFL registration here as all vacancies have been full till August," Education Advisor at USEF in Kathmandu, Gaurav Katuwal was quoted by the website as saying.

He added that it was the decision of the ETS to close computer- based TOEFL before introducing internet-based TOEFL in Nepal.

He informed that the ETS has not specified a confirmed date for the start of Internet-based TOEFL in Nepal, but it has planed to administer Internet-based TOEFL before the start of 2007.

He also said that the dates are subject to change, and students need to check the ETS website for updated information.

The United States tops the list of most preferred destination for Nepali students. In the academic year 2004/05 alone, 4,861 Nepali students went to U.S. universities, up by 11 percent compared to the previous year.

The figure is growing so fast that Nepal is now amongst the top 25 countries (ranking 23rd) that sends students to the U.S. and the fastest growing country of origin for students in the U.S., according to a survey by U.S.-based Institute of International Education (IIE). In other words, no other country matched Nepal's growth rate in 2005 in sending students to the U.S., the report said.

Source: Xinhua