Nairobi Ranked Top City in Africa in English Proficiency

A new study has found Nairobi to be the city with the most English proficient speakers and writers in Africa.

The Kenyan capital city scored 61.94 percent in terms of knowledge of spoken and written English, according to the English Proficiency Index (EPI) 2019.

The EPI index, which ranked 100 countries and regions, indicates that only two African cities made it to the high proficiency group. The two cities are Nairobi (61.94 percent) and Lagos (Nigeria) with a score of 58.47 percent.

On the global stage, Kenya’s English language skills ranked 18th, the second-highest on the continent after South Africa that ranked sixth in the world.

Nigeria and Ethiopia ranked 29th and 63rd respectively while Libya ranked the lowest. About 13 African countries participated in the survey.

Kenya, Sudan, Côte d’Ivoire, Bahrain, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives, Nepal, and Paraguay were among the new entrants in the 2019 survey.

The scores were determined through analyzing results from 2.3 million adults who took an online English test in 2018 via EF Standard English Test.