The Educational Testing Service ( ETS) of the United States and China's National Education Examination Authority (NEEA) signed a seven-year contract Wednesday in the ETS headquarters in New Jersey appointing NEEA as the exclusive provider of operational test services for the Internet-based TOEFL and GRE exams in China.

At the signing ceremony ETS President and CEO Kurt Landgraf said working with the NEEA was "important to ETS because they share our values, beliefs and goals.” He noted that the strong, long-term relationship between the two institutions was based "not only on mutual understanding and unified objectives, but most importantly, on trust and commitment."

Of his part, Dai Jiagan, President of the NEEA, said the expanded relationship between the two institutions would offer exciting new opportunities for Chinese students as the flexibility of internet-based testing would help expand their access to world renowned assessments at ETS test centers across China.

The NEEA will host a localized version of the ETS web registration, payment, scheduling and on-line score reporting systems. It would also recruit for and manage internet-based test centers, providing local customer-technical support and managing- administering the tests on behalf of ETS in China.

China is the only country to date to have a local representative with fully shared administrative responsibilities for test delivery over the new Internet-based platform. ETS expects to launch the new internet-based TOEFL test in China this August.

ETS is a nonprofit institution devoted to advancing quality and equality in education by providing fair and valid assessments, research and related services. The NEEA is an institution under the direct control of the Ministry of Education and tasked with the supervision and administration of educational examinations in China.

(Xinhua News Agency March 9, 2006)