Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia (UCC) is now using iTEP English assessment tools to evaluate the English proficiency of its teaching faculty as well as current, arriving, and graduating students at its 15 universities and 32 departments spread over 18 campuses throughout Colombia. UCC is the largest private post secondary educational institution in Colombia, with campuses in major cities including Bogota, Medellín, Barrancabermeja, Santa Marta and Bucaramanga.

As part of its commitment to quality and teacher development, UCC aims to improve the English proficiency of its entire faculty. iTEP was chosen as the ideal English test to identify specific language skills for improvement.

So far, over 3,700 faculty members from across UCC’s 18 campuses have participated in the English proficiency testing project. iTEP International was successfully able to provide simultaneous testing at multiple campuses over a four week period.

Beginning February 2018 UCC will also be testing up to 20,000 of its current and new incoming students using the iTEP Global Placement test. The testing will determine the proficiency of the students and place them in English language programs of the appropriate level. Students will be administered iTEP several times during the year to monitor progress and guide improvement.

“With campuses in 18 cities, we found the logistics of administering IELTS or TOEFL on a large scale to be very difficult,” says UCC Rector Martiza Rondón Rangel. “iTEP is the perfect tool for a large institution with a lot of people in different locations like ours. It’s an excellent combination of a test that has a recognizable name and is easy to use.”

Many UCC students come from middle class or poor families, so facilitating English study while students are enrolled and ensuring a high English level at graduation opens opportunities for them. The faculty benefits on a personal level. “English skills finely tuned through regular iTEP testing allow for academic collaborations and professional growth,” says Rondón Rangel.

“iTEP was created to streamline the English assessment testing process to be more user-friendly for test-takers and administrators alike,” says iTEP International Chairman Perry Akins. “Seeing our tests implemented on such a large-scale and vital initiative by UCC emphasizes how efficient these tools are, as well as the richness of the data we provide in our score reports.”