Competition Brings ACT to Students Across China

ACT Education Solutions, Limited, has agreed to naming-rights sponsorship of the ACT National Spoken English TV Competition.

Making the announcement in September during his visit to Beijing and Shanghai for a series of meetings, ACT’s Chief Executive Officer Richard L. Ferguson, confirmed that ACT will sponsor the competition through 2011. “We supported the competition in 2005 and were pleased with the results,” Ferguson said. “The competition provides opportunities for tens of thousands of individuals across 20 provinces to test their knowledge and skills and to be eligible to win prizes in various categories.”

The competition is organized by the Beijing Zhongqing Shengye Culture Development Company in association with the National Translation Test and Appraisal Center and the China Traditional Culture Promotion Council.

“We are very pleased to be working with such a renowned global educational organization as ACT,” said Wang Chuan, chairman of the competition organizing committee. “We were looking for a suitable partner, and ACT Education Solutions, which is in China to promote opportunities for Chinese students, matched what we were looking for exactly.”

ACT anticipates that greater name recognition in China will bring more students to its Global Assessment Certificate (GAC) program, which prepares students whose first language is not English for study at English-speaking universities. All students working toward a GAC take the ACT college admission test. ACT Education Solutions, Limited, a subsidiary of ACT, administers the GAC program in China. The 2006 ACT National Spoken English TV Competition started in March and will run through August. Organizers expect more than 200,000 competitors from 20 provinces.

The 200,000 students will compete in six categories—Primary A, Primary B, Junior High, Senior High, University (English majors), and University (non-English majors). Three thousand finalists will travel to Beijing in August for the final rounds of competition, which will be televised on all the major stations in China, including China Central TV and Beijing TV.

After the final series of tests and competitions, 300 students will emerge as winners—50 in each of the six categories.