Dubai: The Common Educational Proficiency Assessment (CEPA) exams began as a joint venture between the National Admissions and Placement Office (NAPO) in the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research and the three higher education institutions in the United Arab Emirates – the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU), Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) and Zayed University (ZU).
Implemented in 2006, CEPA was developed to facilitate the placement of students for English language and maths study purposes across the three higher education institutions.
CEPA-English has been used to determine eligibility for placement into higher diploma and bachelor degree courses.
CEPA-Maths is used to facilitate the placement of students into maths courses. It is used for placement in foundation programmes only, not for selection. However, CEPA-Maths is a compulsory part of the application process, and students without a CEPA-Maths score will not be considered eligible for higher education courses.
Since 2007 the CEPA-English exam has been administered to all students completing grade 12 of the Ministry of Education English curriculum as the semester two examination.
The CEPA English examinations consist of three sections — grammar, vocabulary and reading and writing.
The reading and writing portion of the test uses English from practical contexts to expose students to everyday situations in which the language is used.
— Source: www.napo.ae/cepa/
