The Education Ministry aims to raise the English standards of all teachers of the language to that of ‘proficient user’ by 2020.

The ministry’s English Language Teaching Centre (ELTC) director Mohamed Abu Bakar said only 52 percent of Malaysia's 40,000 English-language teachers today are graded at the ‘proficient user’ level under the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).

These correspond to the C1 and C2 level, which are the two highest levels of language proficiency under CEFR’s six-band scale. C1 – the second highest – is the minimum level needed to teach effectively.