It was not announced officially, but on November 28, 2008, not only Ministerial Instructions were introduced. Along with that changes were made to the correlation table used to calculate immigration points based on IELTS band scores. Now certain applicants get more immigration points for the same IELTS results.

New rule in effect since November 28, 2008, is as follows:

IELTS results submitted before November 28, 2008 will be assessed using both the current and the previously used correlation tables. The table that gives more immigration points will be used for the assessment. For example, an IELTS result of 7.0 - 7.0 - 7.0 - 7.0 will give 16 points to the applicant according to the old correlation table, but only 14 points, if calculated using the new one. Therefore first result (16 points) will be used in the assessment. Similarly, an IELTS score of 7.0 - 6.5 - 6.5 - 6.5 will be translated into immigration points using the new table rather than the old one.