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Casablanca — A World Economic Forum (WEF) study has revealed that Morocco is the MENA country with the best proficiency in English as a second language (ESL).
The MENA region, however, scored very poorly compared to other regions. The study, which was published on November 15, showed that the “poorest performing region is the Middle East and North Africa where all but two nations – Morocco and the United Arab Emirates are rated very low.”
The lowest ranking MENA countries in terms of English proficiency, according to the WEF, are Saudi Arabia, Libya and Iraq, while the best performing countries are the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden.
In Asia, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines scored highest while Argentina, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay took first, second and third place in Latin America.
The WEF study also discovered that out of the 1.5 billion people who speak English all over the world, “less than 400 million speak it as a first language. That means that over 1 billion speak it as a secondary language.”
Moreover, global ESL data showed that countries with “higher income, higher levels of innovation and a better quality of life” tend to report a higher overall proficiency in English as a second language.
Last month, Education First, a world leader in international education, also ranked Morocco as 1st in the MENA region and 44th in the world in terms of English proficiency.
That study showed an improvement on Morocco’s part, thanks to the growing use of the Internet, which more than half of Moroccans now have access to according to World Bank statistics.
EF’s findings also showed that Moroccan women are more proficient in English as a second language than men are by roughly 3 percent.
