In the region, the countries most proficient in English were Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, South Korea, and Hong Kong, China.Īfter decades of fueling economic growth across the region by being the 'workshop of the world' Asia's transition from manufacturing to knowledge-driven growth will require better English. This was revealed by the recent English Proficiency Index by Education First which also found that English proficiency in Asia declined slightly compared to last year, with almost half the countries surveyed registering a drop in score.
National Counselling & Psychotherapy ConferenceĬompared to other regions, Asia was found to have the widest range of English proficiency levels, from Singapore with a proficiency band of 'very high', the Philippines benchmarked as 'high', Malaysia in the 'moderate' range, to Indonesia with 'low' and Thailand having 'very low' proficiency in the language.
