Albania’s English Proficiency Improves

TIRANA, November 23

Albania, known for its foreign language skills performance, is continuing to improve when it comes to English-speaking proficiency, a recent ranking confirms. The recently released annual English Proficiency Index shows Albania is continuing its progress among English-speaking countries.
Albania ranks 43rd among 100 countries where English is not a national language and 29th in Europe. The Netherlands, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden topped the ranking while Saudi Arabia, Oman, Iraq, and Tajikistan, scored the lowest worldwide.
The index measures countries based on the test data from more than 2,200,000 test takers around the world who took the EF Standard English Test (EF SET) or one of our English placement tests in 2019.
Albania was ranked among the countries with moderate proficiency, between Russia and Ukraine. Meanwhile, only Italy and Spain from the EU countries ranked in the moderate proficiency category.
Besides, jumping three places from the last index, Albania’s performance with the English language also improves its position in the Business Process Outsourcing industry.
English is the international business language, while the growing presence and importance of digitalization and BPO make English the official language among many industries, especially in sectors like Information and Communication Technology (ICT).
Since the beginning, the English language was a major factor in the outsourcing sector. Hence, language proficiency along with affordable labor costs, geographic position, and culture affinity also improve Albania’s position among nearshore outsourcing destination, for many European companies.

Read also: Why Outsourcing to Albania?

Foreign Language Skills and Education in Albania

Source: EF