For the first time in a single year, more than 1 million people around the world have gained certification in the world's most popular English language test for immigration and higher education: the International English Language Testing System.

Topping the results table were those whose first language was Tagalog - spoken in the Philippines - with an overall score of 6.571 across the four papers (listening, reading, writing and speaking). They were closely followed by speakers of Spanish, Malay, Hindi and Tamil, the last two being spoken widely in southern India and Sri Lanka.

From a country perspective Germany topped the list. German students scored an average of 7.16, followed by Malaysia, the Philippines, Russia and Hong Kong.

Thai candidates scored an average of 5.5 to 6, ranking 18th in the world.

Results also showed that female candidates had the slight edge over their male counterparts with an overall score of 5.94 across the papers, compared with 5.74 for men.

Smart speaker

Congratulations to Thanawat Paowiboon, a freshman social-science student at Mahidol University's International College, who recently won the Asean University Network's Educational Forum and Young Speakers Contest. The theme for the English-language oratory competition was "How Asean Can Move Forward Towards a Single Asean Community".

The competition was held at the University of Brunei Darussalam.