Life in the UK Test - alternative course at FE college?

[brownie]

I work in an FE college and we are getting lots of people coming in to us who know that their level of English is nowhere near good enough for them to attempt the online test. They are asking for a course leading to a certificate that they can then use to apply for British Citizenship.

This is taken from the Life in the UK Test website:

You should take the test if you are applying for naturalisation as a British citizen and your level of English is ESOL Entry 3 or above. If your level of English is lower than ESOL Entry 3 and you wish to apply for naturalisation, you will need to attend combined English language (ESOL) and citizenship classes instead. Classes will be run at your local further education or community college.

All of our ESOL courses already have some citizenship content but is this acceptable to the Home Office? I presume that there must be some specific content to the course, maybe a specific length, or we may even have to register as a centre to run these courses.

I've tried calling the number on the website but they weren't able to tell me and keep passing me to other departments/giving me different numbers! Someone is supposed to be calling me back in the next few days to let me know what we have to do to run these courses.

In the meantime, is there anyone here who knows the answer to this or where I can find out? Are there any other ESOL teachers who are getting the same queries? Thanks!

[olisun]

All of our ESOL courses already have some citizenship content but is this acceptable to the Home Office? <== are you asking that by just taking the (english) course one can directly apply for citizenship without passing the life in the UK test?

[sywahu]

I know of one college where the ESOL teacher "informally" started using the Citizenship book. But this wasn't official, only something he was doing of his own accord.

I was thinking of checking with the home office whether this would be sufficient. But I think unless the college does it formally, it won't work.

But I didn't check this.

[ppron747]

This page on the IND website - scroll down to the bottom half - has some information which may be of help. It's working at the moment, so grab it quickly!!

[brownie]

Anyone else??

I'm really finding the Home Office/IND unhelpful about this. They say they'll call me back and they don't, they put me on hold and then cut me off, IND website never working..... How are we supposed to find out?

Life In The UK website says 'classes will be run at your local further education college', but we are that college and we don't know what these classes are!

Aaaarrrgghhhh!

[John]

IND website never working

The performance of this website is terrible! Extreme patience is required! It is a bit better out of UK working time. ppron747 posted one night at about 10.30.pm that it was working then ..... maybe check 30 minutes before your bedtime?

If you really cannot get assistance from the Home Office, I think you would be justified in raising the matter with your MP. Maybe he/she can get some sense out of the Home Office?

Does this help? I have just done a search on google.co.uk for :-

ESOL citizenship course

There are lots of hits, and not just on the Home Office website.

[brownie]

Thanks! I've already tried google but without success. However, I have just managed to get onto the IND website as you suggested - am having a slightly sleepless night so thought I'd try. Think I got the info we need from the link ppron747 posted a while ago.

Thanks for all your replies

[John]

Using Google you are able to see details of colleges that do already offer the course you are talking about. Maybe it would help if you made contact with one or more such colleges and asked how they went about getting approval for their course.