Insurance isn't the only problem international graduate students face.

The Graduate Student Council reaffirmed and strengthened a policy requiring all incoming doctoral candidates to complete an English competency program through their respective departments, said Bilel Jamoussi, president of the International Student Council.

The plan aims to increase the level of English competency by requiring graduate programs to evaluate candidates through an original piece of their writing, identify deficiencies before or at the Candidacy Examination and establish plans to improve competency.

The council seeks to combat declining English writing skills among graduate students, said Kenneth P. Wilkinson, chairman of the Graduate Council Committee of Academic Standards.

"Some of the departments in the University were expressing concern about the English competency of some of their students," Wilkinson said. "Some students were having difficulties getting admitted to advanced courses in English."

It does not only apply to students for whom English is a second language, Wilkinson added.

Louay Chamra, an international doctoral candidate from Lebanon, said the new requirements were reasonable because all students, both American and international, need to master the English language to help them become better teaching assistants and to write theses.

"To be able to write in English, we have to master the language," Chamra said.

The new policy also requires that departments submit the methods by which they currently evaluate English competency, he said.

But after reviewing those methods, Jamoussi said he was concerned by the lack of uniform evaluation techniques among departments.

"Each department has been interpreting the policy in its own way," Jamoussi said.

Some departments use students' thesis proposals and others use candidacy essays or students' published papers to fulfill the English competency requirements, he said.

Some departments interpret the policy "too strictly" and sometimes require their students to take the TOEFL test -- an examination that tests a student's knowledge of basic English but does not test students' technical writing abilities, Jamoussi said.

"A uniform way of testing would be better because it would let international students know exactly what was expected of them," Jamoussi said.

But Barbara Shannon, associate dean of the Graduate School, defended the lack of a standard departmental test.

"Each graduate program is distinct in itself," Shannon said. "You want to emphasize different things in different programs."

Finding systematic help for students who fail competency tests also poses a problem, Jamoussi said.

Some departments advise students to take English 418 -- Technical Writing -- but "the course was not designed to be a remedial course" and has departmental controls to give preference to English majors, Jamoussi said.

The inability of English classes to accommodate graduate students led the Office of International Students to initiate a proposal for a larger and more focused writing center.

In a preliminary draft, the speech communication and English departments proposed replacing the existing writing center with a new Center for Writing and Speaking, Jamoussi said.

The center would continue to offer services to undergraduates but would also offer writing and speaking instruction to graduate students who need it, according to the proposal.