Singapore is ranked among the top ten countries again.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) published an article on the report on the English Proficiency Index (EPI) that ranked Singapore 6th spot among countries -- the only non-European nation in the top ten -- which used English as a second language.*

Wait a minute...

If English is our second language, what is our first language?

No, there are no amendments to our constitution to ensure that every language has an opportunity to be our first language.

According to Singapore's constitution, Malay, Mandarin, Tamil and English continues to be the four official languages, and our national language is Malay.

We also know informally that our first language and working language is England lor.

In fact, England English has become the language spoken most often at home (36.9 percent of residents aged five and older use English vs 34.9 percent for Mandarin), according to a government survey of households done every ten years.

By the way, the EPI is a research on where English is learned around the world and quality of teaching in each country. The EPI was calculated using test data from 950,000 test takers in 2015, with at least 400 test takers per country.

No wonder the Press Secretary to Prime Minister took the use of standard English so seriously, even rebutting a poet in the New York Times for his promotion of Singlish.

See lah, now ang mohs think that our England cannot make it.

*EF Education First contacted Mothership on 20 Nov to clarify that EF Education First, not the WEF, was the organisation that published the EF EPI.

Top photo by Darrell Wong/Fresno Bee/MCT via Getty Images.

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