Vietnam climbed two places from last year to rank 58th in the global English proficiency index this year, remaining in the group of countries with ‘moderate proficiency,’ according to Swiss educational organization Education First (EF).

With a score of 505 out of 800, Vietnam placed 58th out of 113 non-native English-speaking countries and territories in the 2023 EF English Proficiency Index (EPI) announced by EF in a ceremony held in Ho Chi Minh City on Monday.

This EPI score is three points higher than the global average and also three points above the country’s scoring last year, when it ranked 60th.

With this result, Vietnam stays in the group of ‘moderate proficiency’ along with 32 other countries.

In 2021, Vietnam placed in the ‘low proficiency’ group, with a score of 486, before moving up to the ‘moderate proficiency’ group in 2022. 

This year, the Hong (Red) River Delta is the region leading Vietnam with 530, while Hanoi tops the list of cities with 538.  

The 2023 EPI score of Vietnamese women is 498, lower than that of men at 513.

In Southeast Asia, Vietnam now ranks fourth, behind Singapore, the Philippines, and Malaysia. 

Among 23 Asian countries and territories in the 2023 ranking, Singapore takes first place while Vietnam holds seventh place, the same position as last year and higher than India, China, and Japan. 

With 631, Singapore also earned the second spot in the global ranking, after the Netherlands, which tops the list with 647.

The third, fourth, and fifth places belong to Austria, Denmark, and Norway, respectively.

Despite its dominance at the top of the table, Europe is in a bit of a slump this year with a number of highly and very highly qualified countries reporting slightly lower scores, EF commented.

In South and Southeast Asia, although many regional countries have stable or modestly rising scores, these regions have seen a slight drop in their level of English on average. 

“The regional averages are impacted by India’s level of English proficiency, which has been declining slowly over several years. In addition, the progress Thailand was making until 2020 has been erased by the pandemic,” EF explained.

Meanwhile, Central Asia’s English proficiency is low but stable, with higher-than average gender gaps in favor of men in almost every country in the region, according to EF.

Annually published by EF since 2011, EPI is prepared based on analysis of data from the results of Standard English Test (SET) organized by EF on a global scale.

In 2023, EF compiled SET results from 2.2 million adults from the aforementioned 113 countries and territories.

The results of the countries' English proficiency index are divided into groups: very high (over 600), high (550 - 599), moderate (500 - 549), low (450 - 499), and very low (under 450).

Like us on Facebook or  follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!