Students took the Malaysia TOCFL, seated in line with safe social distancing protocols

The 2020 Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language (TOCFL) organized by the Education Division of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Malaysia was held in Kuala Lumpur on August 8. This year’s reading and listening tests were originally scheduled for April 25, but they had to be postponed because of strict government restrictions, including travel restrictions, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
When these restrictions were eased, the Education Division undertook the task of organizing this year’s delayed TOCFL with ensuring that all the test takers could sit their test in a safe environment as the highest priority.
The rigorous measures adopted by the Education Division to protect the health and safety of each candidate included disinfecting the test venue before and after each test, taking the temperature of each candidate and asking each candidate to clean their hands with hand sanitizer as they entered the campus where the tests were held, and asking each candidate to fill out a health declaration form about their health status and travel history. 
The candidates had to wear a face mask at all times on the campus as well as during the tests, and the seats for each test were spaced in line with the social distance requirements advised by the government, to ensure safety and let the candidates take the test with peace of mind. 
This year, 120 candidates registered for the TOCFL in Malaysia: two for Band A (beginner range), 35 for Band B (intermediate range), and 83 for Band C (advanced range). They included people who had received an English-language education, and Malay and Korean candidates. Their ages ranged from 14 to 54. Most were students, but there were also educators, administrators, and people working in marketing, and other fields. 
TOCFL is a standardized assessment tool for Mandarin proficiency levels. Having a TOCFL certificate is a requirement if students want to apply for a Ministry of Education Taiwan Scholarship, and it serves as evidence of a student’s Mandarin Language Proficiency Level if they apply for admission to a university or college in Taiwan, or for employment with a Taiwanese enterprise. 
Apart from having their students take the annual TOCFL, educational institutions and international schools are welcome to apply to the Education Division to arrange holding a TOCFL pilot test to evaluate their students’ Mandarin language proficiency and learning outcomes.