Ganesh Chaturthi: warm wishes from everyone at MTS
Matthew Steele
Today marks Ganesh Chaturthi, and we would like to send our very best wishes to everyone celebrating.
Today marks Ganesh Chaturthi, and we would like to send our very best wishes to everyone celebrating; at home, with family, in community halls and temples across the UK and Ireland, and with loved ones back in India.
For those unfamiliar with the festival, Ganesh Chaturthi celebrates the birth of Lord Ganesha. Beautifully made clay idols are welcomed into homes and public pandals, where they are honoured with prayers, music, food and flowers over the days that follow. The celebrations run for ten days, drawing to a close with visarjan on Anant Chaturdashi. It is one of the most joyful and visible festivals in the Indian calendar, observed particularly widely in Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, and carried far beyond them by Indian communities all over the world - including here in the UK and Ireland, in the cities where our own test centres sit.
Ganesha is known as the remover of obstacles and the patron of new beginnings. That idea resonates with us more than most, because so much of what happens in our test centres is exactly that: someone taking a decisive step towards something new.
Our Indian test takers
We are proud to say that so far this September, Indian nationals have been the second most populous nationality among IELTS test takers at MTS.
Behind that figure are thousands of individual plans. Many of our Indian test takers are sitting IELTS for educational reasons, working towards a place on an undergraduate or postgraduate course and needing to evidence their English for a conditional offer, a CAS or a visa application. Many others are sitting it for employment - nurses, doctors, engineers, care workers and countless other professionals who need a recognised English qualification to register, to relocate, or to take the next step in a career they have already spent years building.
Whatever the reason, a test day carries a lot of weight. We do not take lightly the fact that people put months of preparation, considerable expense and a good deal of hope into the few hours they spend with us. Our job is to make that experience as calm, fair and well organised as we possibly can.
Everyone is welcome
MTS operates 15 IELTS test centres across the UK and Ireland, and we welcome test takers of every nationality through our doors. On any given test day our centres host people from dozens of countries, at every stage of life, pursuing every imaginable ambition. That mix is one of the best things about the work we do.
Today, though, we are thinking particularly of our Indian test takers, their families and the wider Indian community across these islands.
"Ganpati Bappa Morya!" Wishing you a joyful, peaceful and prosperous Ganesh Chaturthi.
Find your nearest IELTS test centre in the UK and Ireland here: