What I Think Has Been Happening to IELTS Writing Marking: Inconsistencies Explained

In short, I suspect that there are very few writing examiners in Australia and some of the overflow is sent to Indian examiners who interpret the marking rubric in a very different way. Let me go back through my personal experience to why I think this is so.

In around 2017, I was trained in Melbourne by IDP and then sent to India to work as a writing and speaking examiner. Despite having visited India four times before as a journalist, this was a completely different experience. Being a tourist—even a working one—is nothing like trying to adapt to the daily realities of working alongside locals. I quickly came to understand the immense stress of everyday life in India—the sheer weight of it- pushes it citizens to live with either constant anxiety or a kind of robotic numbness- very different from the yogic view I had previously had. I began to understand why things like meditation and yoga hard emerged in this part of the world. I diverge…

At that time, IDP was transitioning its writing assessment model. Previously, examiners were paid hourly to sit, read papers, and mark them by hand, with enough time to be thorough. The new model required examiners to work online, using their own monitors, computer equipment, and even liability insurance—while being expected to mark up to 300 tasks a day.

Over lunch at the hotels where we conducted speaking tests, conversations between Indian and older Australian examiners were revealing. Many of the Australians were planning to retire from writing assessment. They felt that supplying their own equipment and insurance was unreasonable, and that marking 300 tasks a day was tantamount to slave labour. IDP’s plan was to replace casual markers—those working a few hours or days a week—with fewer examiners working longer hours.

Most of us were exhausted after eight hours of speaking exams, which required intense focus and active listening. We tried to engage candidates in real conversation, but many simply recited memorised answers. Examiners are not supposed to assess memorised content, but in India, it was often all we had to work with.

When we raised this with senior examiners, they asked, “How do you know it’s memorised?” Our response: “Because today, 25 candidates gave the same answer.” Their reply? “How do you know it’s not a coincidence?” Our response “we asked 25 different questions, and got the same answer from 25 candidates.”

Whatever the topic; “family is crucial for the survival of mankind, trees are crucial for the survival of mankind, junk food is crucial for the survival of mankind, bicycles are crucial for the survival of mankind, bodies are crucial for the survival of mankind.”

The repetition swells in your head to a stress headache. At times I though I would go crazy.

The Indian examiners didn’t understand why we were so exhausted. I later realised they didn’t conduct the test with the same active listening approach nor creating questions on their own. They asked the same set questions, marked grammar and vocabulary, and ignored whether responses were memorised or contextually appropriate or nonsensical.

In the evenings, they would return to their rooms and mark 100–200 writing tasks—earning about $5 per task—in just a couple of hours. At first, I was amazed by their stamina. But then one examiner shared the trick: count cohesive devices (“moreover,” “furthermore,” etc.), check paragraphing and sentence length, and match these to the rubric. Don’t read for meaning.

Back in Australia, I marked at an IDP centre where we followed our training. Some students used templates full of “moreovers” and “it is crucial that…,” but most wrote thoughtful, original essays with various levels of comprehensibility that demonstrate their actual English level. I felt confident preparing students to express opinions and use grammar and vocabulary suited to the topic, and by teaching them English not templates, was the way to success in the test and life in Australia.

When writing marking went fully online around 2019, IDP promised that all exams taken in Australia would be marked in Australia. I taught the Masterclass at UTS around this time, and the materials supplied by IDP supported this. The focus was on moving students away from ‘myth’ of template hacks and element-counting (as seen in India and in PTE), and toward showing flair. Perfect grammar wasn’t the goal—sophisticated, authentic writing was. One sample Band 8 essay was full of phrasal verbs and colourful language, despite a preposition error in the first line. Another Band 8 essay was highly academic and used six paragraphs—not the standard four.

I had great success helping students break the 6.5 barrier by teaching them to write essays that demonstrated their ability to communicate ideas—not just follow a formula.

Then came a viral moment in 2019: a well-known PTE teacher posted a YouTube video complaining he only scored 6.5 using a PTE-style template. After speaking with an IELTS examiner, he rewrote his essay without the template and scored higher. The message from IDP was clear: templates are downgraded because your grammar and vocabulary must be in context, varied, and responsive to the question.

But now, I’m not sure IDP has kept its word about Australian tests being marked in Australia. Candidates—including native English speakers and even ex-examiners—are reporting wildly inconsistent scores. While nerves and test-day conditions can affect performance, it’s suspicious when qualified professionals score the same as English learners.

Which brings me back to India. For over five years, the test has been marked entirely online. Examiners have never seen names or countries when marking the test so they have never known the origin—only candidate numbers—so they don’t know where the test was taken.

As I mentioned IDP promised that Australian tests would NEVER be marked overseas but speaking to Indian writing examiners and knowing there are very few writing examiners left in Australia, how do we know?

We do know that IELTS is a profit driven company and its CEO was the highest paid CEO in Australia in 2022 (yes, higher than the mining companies) and but profits have fallen since then. We also know that IDP subcontract to a company called Planet Edu.

While I wasn’t thrilled with how the test was conducted in India, at least there was a baseline: use a template in India, write authentically in Australia. But if we no longer know where our tests are being marked—and if the marking methods differ so drastically—how can candidates prepare with confidence?

There is another reason for the general decline in consistency since the IELTS went online in general, a drop of quality, and I will explain why examiners are afraid to give high scores when working at speed.

So, in short, I suspect that there are very few writing examiners in Australia and some of the overflow is sent to Indian examiners who interpret the marking rubric in a very different way.

Sources: https://thepienews.com/idps-andrew-barkla-highest-paid-ceo-in-australia-in-2019/