British Home Office announces new English language testing arrangements for UK Visas, including student visa.

The British Home Office announced on the 20h of February that from 6th of April, only English tests from Trinity College London (TCL) and IELTS will be accepted for UK visa applications that require formal English assessments.
TCL will offer English tests to students in the UK, while IELTS will administer the English language tests outside UK via 100 accredited test centres.
Pearson and City & Guild will continue to offer approved English testing services until 5th of April 2015. English tests taken from Pearson, City & Guild and Cambridge by 5th of April can be used to support visa applications until 5th November 2015.
According to Study Travel Magazine, IELTS currently has 1,000 test centres worldwide bu under the new rules, only around 10% of these will be initially approved.

These new rules begs the question, does IELTS have the capacity and ability to meet the demand for English tests worldwide?
Currently in Nigeria, there are only 7 IELTS test centres in -
Abuja, Lagos, Port-Harcourt, Benin, Enugu, Ibadan, Ilorin. With the high number of students requiring English tests in Nigeria, IELTS could not meet the demand with their 7 centres prior to the new rules and Pearson English test filled the gap.
This drastic change on English test policy will definitely impact negatively on students in terms of delays in the processing of applications for  admissions and student visa applications.