ETS Hosts TOEFL Experience Days in Hyderabad
A hands-on learning event brings TOEFL’s research, design thinking, and classroom resources closer to educators and advisors in Hyderabad — a key southern India study-abroad destination.
By : DC Correspondent
Update: 2025-12-16 17:32 GMT
Hyderabad: ETS, the global leader in educational assessment and creator of the TOEFL iBT test, hosted a TOEFL Experience Days event in Hyderabad on December 16,2025. The event offered an early look at the enhanced TOEFL iBT launching on January 21, 2026, bringing TOEFL experts together with leading educators, advisors, and partners for an immersive deep dive into the upcoming changes. This experiential format reinforces ETS’s commitment to strengthening partnerships that enable educators and advisors to better support test-taker success.
For ETS, Hyderabad represents a key market in southern India, with growing interest from study-abroad aspirants. ETS India currently operates two active test centers in Hyderabad, both located in prime areas, including the Prometric facility. These centers are well-positioned to cater to the city’s strong and growing test-taker base. Given the current market size, the existing capacity is adequate to support candidates effectively. However, considering Hyderabad’s expanding education and study-abroad landscape, ETS India is planning further network expansion in this market by the end of December 2025 to enhance overall service coverage and meet the increasing demand.
At the event, participants received early, hands-on exposure to the enhanced TOEFL iBT, exploring the updated format and its improvements firsthand. They engaged in focused sessions on upcoming test enhancements, the educational and fairness principles behind each section, and how the redesigned test better supports today’s learners in a competitive global admissions landscape. Attendees also interacted directly with ETS experts, gaining deeper insights into test design, scoring, and preparation best practices, while addressing institution-specific questions related to how they guide their students and test-takers.
During the press event, Mr. Sidnei Rodrigues de Souza, Executive Director-Global Partnerships & Sales shared, “TOEFL is evolving to better reflect how students communicate in real academic settings. We are updating the test content and structure, introducing AI-powered scoring for greater precision, and adding adaptive elements that respond to each test taker’s skill level. Educators have welcomed these enhancements, particularly the expanded preparation resources now available to them.
AP/Telangana has been chosen as one of the select regions globally for this initiative because of its strong test-taker base and the growing number of students preparing for higher education abroad. We see this region as an important partner in supporting students as they navigate global admission pathways.”
Speaking about this development, Mr. Omar Chihane, Global General Manager, TOEFL, ETS said: “Hyderabad is a cornerstone market for ETS in southern India, particularly for study-abroad aspirants. The region continues to show strong growth in outbound student mobility, with many students relying on TOEFL iBT scores to access top universities in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. As we prepare for the launch of the enhanced TOEFL iBT on January 21, 2026, this event represents an important step in strengthening our partnerships with educators, advisors, and learners across the region. The redesigned TOEFL iBT is designed to deliver a fairer, more intuitive, and tailored experience, empowering our partners to better support the next generation of globally mobile students.”