Summary
Japan’s English proficiency ranking dropped to 92nd out of 116 countries, the lowest ever recorded.
The decline is attributed to stagnant English proficiency among young people, particularly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Netherlands ranked first, followed by European countries, while the Philippines and Malaysia ranked 22nd and 26th, respectively.
This was in line with my immediate thoughts too.
It seems grossly unfair to judge Japanese people on their ability to speak English.
What are you on about? This is a survey of every country where English isn’t their primary language. This article is from Japan about Japanese proficiency in the English language.
That’s a very idealistic position. English is either useful or necessary in many situations and fields, and having a population that doesn’t know English can and will cause problems. How well people in a country speak English is an important metric for that country’s development, otherwise nobody would care about it.