'Are you sure?': Academics question claim mainland cities ahead of Hong Kong in English
Critics question methodology, saying results of the voluntary test will be skewed thanks to unscientific research samples
Academics and politicians took issue with a global study of English-language skills that ranked Hong Kong adults marginally lower than residents of major mainland cities including Shanghai, Beijing and Tianjin.
A local representative of US employers said the drop among Hongkongers could be due to public schools switching from English to Chinese as their language of instruction.
But critics of the study cautioned that the research samples in some of the regions might have skewed the results.
Professor Simon Haines, chairman of Chinese University's English department, asked people to "be cautious of rankings".
International publications had raised questions over the methodology used in such test-based rankings because the sampling base varied across different regions, he noted.
The index is based on results of a free online test and the enrolment tests for those taking the company's courses. Both tests include grammar, vocabulary, reading and listening sections. Only countries and regions with a minimum of 400 test-takers were ranked.
Hong Kong scored 52.5 out of 100, which the study interpreted as having "moderate proficiency" in English. The scores for Shanghai, Beijing and Tianjin were 53.7, 52.9 and 52.7, respectively.
Malaysia, the top-ranking Asian location, was 12th in the global index with a score of 59.7.
"Maybe we don't need to worry too much about that particular comparison" between Hong Kong and the mainland cities, Haines said.
Hong Kong ranked 31st on the index, nine places down from last year's rank of 22nd. It was lower than Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Indonesia and Taiwan - but higher than mainland China overall, at 37th place.
New People's Party legislator Michael Tien Puk-sun cast doubt on the credibility of the results, noting that people took the online test on a voluntary basis and so it was difficult to know their motivations for taking it.
He also said the test's focus on reading and listening could not fully reflect the language skills of the test-takers.
The Education Bureau said the rankings might not reflect English proficiency in different regions because the samples could not represent the whole region. In many other local and global tests, the city scored better than neighbouring regions, the bureau said.
EF Education First conceded that the scores could have been skewed because only those who wanted to learn English or were curious about their language skills might have taken the test.
But Dr Richard Vuylsteke, president of the 1,700-member American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, said Hongkongers' English ability had been weakening noticeably.
"English is in decline in Hong Kong; there's no question about it," he said.
Vuylsteke said the reasons included the change to Chinese instruction from English in classes at government-funded schools since the handover, and the increasing expense of alternative schools that taught in English.
He said the government should allow more schools for local children to maintain an English-language curriculum, so that families wanting their children to be taught in English "will have a choice".
