Why it is important to pass IELTS with a good score
A cook from India was denied a work permit because of poor test results.
An Indian national went to court when a Canadian visa officer decided that a 3.5 reading score was too low to work as a chef. According to the IELTS criteria, a score of 3 to 4 means that a person is only able to understand the general meaning of a text on a familiar topic.
He got a 4.5 in listening and a 5.5 in writing and speaking. The overall score was 5.0. Nevertheless, the visa officer considered it critical for a cook to be able to read various work documents: recipes, safety instructions, and notes from colleagues regarding the dietary restrictions of clients.
In July 2021 there was a very similar case. Then an immigrant from India was denied a permit to work as a trucker, and the court agreed with the visa officer's argument that with a 4.5 reading score it was impossible to navigate the road and understand instructions. But later, in 2022, trucker Gurikbal Singh Sandhu of India was able to prove that a 4 reading score was more than enough for him to work in Canada. He reasoned that his IELTS score exceeded the required CLB language scores for immigration to Canada under the Federal Skilled Trades program for professions with NOC B skills. The NOC trucking profession requires a skill level of C.
There are immigration programs for which a score of 4 on the CLB scale, that is, a 3.5 reading score on the IELTS assessment, is technically sufficient. In the cook's court case, the Federal Skilled Trades criteria and the Sandhu trucker case were mentioned, but the court ruled that other minimum requirements were possible under the temporary foreign worker program under which the cook wanted to come, and that the immigration officer had the right to deny the visa by determining the language proficiency required for a particular job.
