Indonesian ranks fifth in ASEAN for TOEFL

Indonesian ranks fifth in ASEAN for TOEFL

Indonesian students came in fifth in English language proficiency tests in Southeast Asia.

Singaporeans ranked first place in the TOEFL scores, followed by Filipinos, Malaysians, Burmese, Indonesians, Vietnamese, Lao, Thais and Cambodians.

Thai students came in second-to-last in the tests, raising questions about the government's goal of making the country a regional hub for everything from fashion to the auto industry, media reports said on Wednesday.

According to a regional survey compiled by Thailand's English Language Development Center, Thais average score in the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) between July, last year, to June, this year, was 201 out of 300 points, ranking them only above Cambodians, who averaged 200 points, among Southeast Asian students.

"We are in eighth place," Achara Wongsothorn, director of the center, told The Nation newspaper.

Achara noted that the results partly reflected the number of students taking TOEFL. For instance, while 9,262 Thais took the language test during the one-year period, only 33 Lao did.

The poor English proficiency performance poses a serious challenge to Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's lofty ambition to turn Thailand into a regional hub for a host of international industries including automobile manufacturing, medical services, spas, cuisine and fashion, noted Siriporn Pornsurapipat, deputy director of the English Language Development Center. -- DPA