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Thailand's position in global English proficiency has taken a hit, according to the 2025 EF English Proficiency Index. Ranked 116th out of 123 countries, Thailand fell into the "very low proficiency" category with a score of 402. This represents a significant drop of 13 points from the previous year.

 

Based on data from 2.2 million test takers aged 26 on average, the EF Index ranks countries on their English proficiency skills. While English remains the top language for international communication, global proficiency hasn't improved since 2020. Countries continue to invest in English education, but progress is uneven, with reading skills generally being the strongest and speaking the weakest worldwide.

 

The report highlights a skill gap, with reading as the strongest skill and speaking as the weakest in many countries. However, in Thailand, reading scores were the best at 416, while speaking lagged at 377, and writing scored the lowest at 363. Proficiency among the youngest adults hasn't reached pre-pandemic levels.

 

European nations dominate the global rankings, with the Netherlands leading, followed by Croatia and Austria.

 

Within Asia, Malaysia topples over others, ranking 24th globally, while Thailand is second to last in the region.

 

Pattaya emerged as the top-performing city in Thailand with a score of 474, surpassing Bangkok's 467. Age-wise, the 26–30 category showed the highest proficiency with an average score of 481. Notably, proficiency among 18–20-year-olds has dropped significantly since 2018, pointing to potential areas for further improvement in education, reported Prachatai.

 

Map courtesy of Prachatai

 

Key Takeaways

• Thailand ranks 116th globally in English proficiency, scoring 402.
• Speaking remains the weakest skill, whereas reading scores are highest.
• Proficiency has decreased significantly among younger age groups post-pandemic.

 

Related story:

Thailand Ranked 106th in English Proficiency Out of 116 Countries

 

  Adapted by ASEAN Now from Prachatai 2025-12-18

 

 

 

IF I were a Thai, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

 

This is Thailand and we speak Thai.

 

English has no place here when you think about it really.

We no speak English because we no need dirty foreign tourists. Um 

27 minutes ago, webfact said:

Pattaya emerged as the top-performing city in Thailand with a score of 474, surpassing Bangkok's 467. Age-wise, the 26–30 category showed the highest proficiency with an average score of 481. Notably, proficiency among 18–20-year-olds has dropped significantly since 2018, pointing to potential areas for further improvement in education, reported Prachathai.

Obviously this would happen... Given Pattayas need to communicate with so many foreigners and that there are so many foreigner kids in the schools. Still, even that number is very low. 

Thailand throws away so much money teaching English. My wife wanted to put our daughters in the English program at school and I refused. They already speak English better than any Thai student. Even my 5 year old speaks better than the P-6 students in the school. 

I have seen first hand how teachers help the kids cheat on tests to get better scores with the school. But the EF test makes it hard to cheat. 

 

Not many parents care to know if their kids are actually learning English when they pay for it in the schools. They expect the kid to learn it, but get angry at the school and teachers when the scores are low. 

I am not surprised.. In  Government schools with 40 to 50 kids in a class, who are not willing to learn, because why should they, as everything is always in Thai even English Camps, they can't even fail for the subject as for all other subjects. So why learn?? Besides that the Government talk that they need to learn English, but nothing is done in English, no TV shows, no movies, no English Camps, nothing at all and if you are from a poor family, living in a rural area, why should you learn a strange language that probably you never need?? Sometimes I see Thai English teachers, who can speak good English and they are also very upset that after 6 years English in Prathom, the students are not able to count from 1 to 20, or even can decent reply on questions as How old are you/What is your age and how are you?... They can't remember anything as they are not thinking. In most schools the teacher teach and the student copy without questions...the O net tests are the same .. all below average, except a few kids who are always in every class who want to learn but 95% even don't do an effort.

And you spend lots of money for very high educated English foreign teachers, but the learning is with the student. You can drag horses to water, but you can't make them drink....

The Ministry of Education controls a staggeringly massive budget compared to its Asian neighbours.

 

What do they spend it on? Where does all that money go??

 

..... I think I know the answer.  

3 hours ago, Purdey said:

We no speak English because we no need dirty foreign tourists. Um 

tell that to the many hotel, shop and restaurant owners in Phuket and Bangkok and other places

3 hours ago, Woke to Sounds said:

IF I were a Thai, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

 

This is Thailand and we speak Thai.

 

English has no place here when you think about it really.

 

Unless you want a good job in engineering, science, accounting, international trade, etc., etc. 😆 

9 minutes ago, Lingba said:

tell that to the many hotel, shop and restaurant owners in Phuket and Bangkok and other places

 

They interviewed staff at Central Chidlom years ago, why they couldn't communicate in English, after some tourists from Singapore complained about that. They answered: "No need."

 

When I visited a bank in Bangkok, only one staff member (incl. the manager) understood and spoke English; the security guard from Myanmar! 😆 

29 minutes ago, StayinThailand2much said:

They interviewed staff at Central Chidlom years ago, why they couldn't communicate in English, after some tourists from Singapore complained about that. They answered: "No need."

 

When I visited a bank in Bangkok, only one staff member (incl. the manager) understood and spoke English; the security guard from Myanmar! 😆 

Nothing has changed. Central Chidlom and Bangkok Bank yesterday. Almost no English.

Thailand wants more foreign tourists, but English proficiency declines?  I wonder if Thailand's proficiency in any foreign language has increased recently?

 

But, there is an explanation - as Thai ultra-nationalistic conservativism increases, English proficiency decreases.

1 hour ago, JimHuaHin said:

But, there is an explanation - as Thai ultra-nationalistic conservativism increases, English proficiency decreases.

 

It's similar in China; the mainlanders are ultra-nationalists, too... 

6 hours ago, StayinThailand2much said:

 

Unless you want a good job in engineering, science, accounting, international trade, etc., etc. 😆 

For that, you would need a good degree, for that, it takes a lot of money, which a lot of Thais do not have, in my rural it would be a low percentage that would get a good degree., so why learn English.

And most Thais  I meet with a Thai degree, can just about string one or two English sentences together.

11 hours ago, webfact said:

Ranked 116th out of 123 countries, Thailand fell into the "very low proficiency" category with a score of 402. This represents a significant drop of 13 points from the previous year.

... which was also "very low proficiency" as was the year before that and the year before that etc. Basically nothing has changed and never will. Fairly sure low to very low proficiency would be across the board for all subjects. Had the national Buddhist exams for grades 5 and 6 a couple of wks back. The monks who came to school to run them gave the students the answers after a period of time. I was invigilating and let me tell you the erasers were very busy.

Good news. My kids are fluent and will have better opportunities in the future. 

One of the effects of 'never been colonized' ...

17 hours ago, StayinThailand2much said:

 

Unless you want a good job in engineering, science, accounting, international trade, etc., etc. 😆 

Exactly.

At work I meet young people who attended international schools in Bangkok who speak English without a hint of Thai accent.

Strangely, although they tell me their teachers were British, they tend to sound more like they have an American accent. I suppose that is media influence over and above the influence of their teachers.

But Tinglish is in the top  5 acording to my son who learnt Tinglish at Bangkok University. !

21 hours ago, thesetat said:

Obviously this would happen... Given Pattayas need to communicate with so many foreigners and that there are so many foreigner kids in the schools. Still, even that number is very low. 

Thailand throws away so much money teaching English. My wife wanted to put our daughters in the English program at school and I refused. They already speak English better than any Thai student. Even my 5 year old speaks better than the P-6 students in the school. 

I have seen first hand how teachers help the kids cheat on tests to get better scores with the school. But the EF test makes it hard to cheat. 

 

Not many parents care to know if their kids are actually learning English when they pay for it in the schools. They expect the kid to learn it, but get angry at the school and teachers when the scores are low. 

based on my daughter's English education I learned early on not to believe the rankings of the elementary schools" English classes as we moved for that sole reason to several different schools and none had any Thai English teachers that really knew English nor how to teach it.  I tried to reason with some of the teachers but was always referred to the Head of the school who set up those classes and from which the teachers were not allowed to deviate from the lessons although many not only were insufficient, but had many errors obvious to any native English speaker.  We finally went to an International school (Chiang Mai) for 5th grade on and daughter graduated speaking, reading, writing in 4 languages (English, Thai, Korean, Chinese) and even teaching Chinese) at another high school.  Now in College at Chulalongkorn, she has passed the Korean international test at level 6 (the highest level) and in her 3rd year, is an exchange student in Seoul.  I have an older daughter (from my first marriage to an American lady who passed from cancer) but that daughter too went to international schools (Thailand, Philippines, Italy) and is very successful in the US due to her computer software skills.  I definitely appreciate the skills my daughters have learned from the international schools, especially when compared to the local schools in many countries.

Too much spent on War and corruption, no baht left for education.  Shameful.

13 minutes ago, mfd101 said:

One of the effects of 'never been colonized' ...

Perfect example - When Spain ceded the Philippines after their war with the US, the first thing the US did was send 500 English teachers to the PI.  My Tagalog teacher said that when the Spanish ruled, they forbid anything written in Tagalog to be destroyed and people were taught Spanish.  When I lived and worked there, In any long conversation with a local, it would many times be a mixture of the three languages.  But one could go into the remote mountain villages and the children would be walking around practicing the speaking of English phrases.  I read several times there that the number one export of the PI was English speaking native citizens.  If in doubt, check out most hospitals in many foreign countries and the PI nurses probably outnumber the local nurses.  Of course, that was several decades ago so I don't know if that trend continues.

11 hours ago, kickstart said:

For that, you would need a good degree, for that, it takes a lot of money, which a lot of Thais do not have, in my rural it would be a low percentage that would get a good degree., so why learn English.

And most Thais  I meet with a Thai degree, can just about string one or two English sentences together.

A "good degree" needs definition. In my experience in Thai universities, a good degree is what the student puts into it. It isn't so much the school, although of course to some degree that matters too. They can get a perfectly good degree and good knowledge/understanding from cheaper public universities. They can go to Ramkhamhaeng or Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University for something like 7,000 - 20,000 (depending on the program). Even poor people can find ways to go to these two universities, if they care to put in the effort. There are many financial assistance programs available, private and public. Even the top universities of the country are not what I'd call taking "a lot of money", they are mostly public and subsidized, that's why, even though they are decent universities even on an international level (decent, not excellent by any stretch of the imagination), they are only around 20,000 - 50,000. It's not cheap to a poor family obviously, but to a mid level wage earning family, it is doable.
There is really no financial excuse, if one really wants the education. Cost is not the problem. 
The problem is the same problem as to why, as you said, "most Thais  I meet with a Thai degree, can just about string one or two English sentences together". It is because they don't care to try. It takes work. It takes effort. It isn't easy. 
Good things don't always just come along delivered on a silver platter, but that seems to be what they think should happen. It doesn't and it won't. 

12 minutes ago, SmokeandIce said:

Too much spent on War and corruption, no baht left for education.  Shameful.

War? What costly war has Thailand been involved with in the past decades?
Corruption? Yes, in spades.

As a 30+ year teacher here i Thailand across four different schools, I know that many foreign teachers gum up the works for one of two reasons:

1) They don't come to Thailand primarily to teach but to enjoy the culture.                                                                                                                                                                                                                       In other words, they come here to exercise their entitlement to have the jobs merely because English was their first language

 

2) Which brings me to the 2nd: they don't genuinely know how to teach language.

    Indeed, most Thai schools merely require a Bachelors degree, which I've often seen again and again, wanna-be teacher try to forge.

    And even if legitimate, are often in subjects with no bearing on language instruction

 

Then there's the school hierarchy, which I won't even get into here to avoid any possible blowback.

 

Bottom line: there are causes and there are effects. These are always joined at the hip.

The good news about causes and effects is that if you heed them, they allow you to solve problems.  

18 minutes ago, SmokeandIce said:

Too much spent on War and corruption, no baht left for education.  Shameful.

Quite the contrary. Lots of money set aside for education. However, it never gets to its final destination. 🙂

18 hours ago, ikke1959 said:

I am not surprised.. In  Government schools with 40 to 50 kids in a class, who are not willing to learn, because why should they, as everything is always in Thai even English Camps, they can't even fail for the subject as for all other subjects. So why learn??

They do get an unpleasant surprise when they go to university. That's when they meet me, and failing is not an issue where I work.

They are genuinely surprised (the students), when they fail the course & then ask me for a 'make-up', which was typically what their Thai teachers let them do in secondary school. It was usually cleaning the staffroom or some other unrelated activity.

I even offer open-book exams and students turn up with no materials with them, and so fail the exam. Some just can't be helped, no matter what you do for them. I could let them use their smartphones (I don't) & they would STILL fail.

It's depressing, demotivating and ruins the job. I push on, for the ones that want to learn. (there are not many of these)  😞 

Wow! Worried about English speaking, maybe get better results if focused more on teaching Thai people to speak Thai - In Isaan, there's older people that can't speak, or understand any Thai other that a few phrases that are the same, and cannot write or read their own name.  Wrong priority, need to fix your own stuff first and not worry about English just yet.

Well my second grade boy at an English school is taught 5th grade English compared to oz. But he can hardly spell simple 3-letter words. What it says is that they don’t teach the proper way. So what do parents/teachers do here? They get kids to memorize the text. So in the minds of officials they have high standards of education but in reality it’s hollow. Superficiality is a norm here. 

18 hours ago, ikke1959 said:

I am not surprised.. In  Government schools with 40 to 50 kids in a class, who are not willing to learn, because why should they, as everything is always in Thai even English Camps, they can't even fail for the subject as for all other subjects. So why learn?? Besides that the Government talk that they need to learn English, but nothing is done in English, no TV shows, no movies, no English Camps, nothing at all and if you are from a poor family, living in a rural area, why should you learn a strange language that probably you never need?? Sometimes I see Thai English teachers, who can speak good English and they are also very upset that after 6 years English in Prathom, the students are not able to count from 1 to 20, or even can decent reply on questions as How old are you/What is your age and how are you?... They can't remember anything as they are not thinking. In most schools the teacher teach and the student copy without questions...the O net tests are the same .. all below average, except a few kids who are always in every class who want to learn but 95% even don't do an effort.

And you spend lots of money for very high educated English foreign teachers, but the learning is with the student. You can drag horses to water, but you can't make them drink....

You’re ABSOLUTELY right!

They just DON’T care…

Your last sentence hits the bullseye dead center…

Many young Thais have no interest in learning English try working in a Thai school you will see,