Here [ local copy ]
Clearly they think the problem is bad enough
There is some good stuff in there, but what can one do about it? Any international discussion of ELP polarises on national lines.
Page 53 onwards e.g.
I’m not surprised. All foreign master students we accept at my university have to pass standardised tests of English proficiency. These tests are taken in the students’ home countries and in many cases their command of English turn out to be considerably worse than you would expect from the test scores. Occasionally this results in tragedies when students are unable to write a legible master’s thesis and have finish their education without a degree.
This one is epic and illustrates the problem with “face” well:
Most common in S-E Asia.
Cheating seems to be common and acceptable means to an end in some cultures.
A week or so ago I got chatting to a guy, about 30, from the Middle East outside our house. He turned out to be an electronics student here. A few days later I got a load of phone calls and emails, asking me to do an entire Masters electronics assignment for him. It turns out he didn’t know the three legs on a transistor and he is “doing” a Masters. I tried to get him involved a bit in researching (=googling) these basics and after a couple of iterations never heard again… His Masters in Electronics is going to be a complete fake.
When Justine used to teach at a university, again Masters and some PhD supervision, this was endemic. Whole pages were copied and pasted off the internet into a Master thesis, in many cases leaving the page numbers within the text 
This cheating started almost immediately when the language proficiency requirements were introduced. The usual suspects, for whom this was originally introduced, basically gave away the LP4 qualifications, in some cases even LP5 and 6 to people who were the very reason ICAO decided that something had to be done.
The only real consequence should have been to ban thouse countries from issuing any language proficiency in English totally, requiring their international pilots to sit exams in an English speaking country such as the UK, US or Australia. Of course, this did not happen. Instead, some countries tried retaliatory measures which by now fortunately have appeared to stop.
IMHO, people who do not understand the ATC language used in any country have no place in the sky.
However this isn’t just pilots; it is ATC also. In many “modern” countries ATC ELP is appalling. It seems to me that in these countries the individual pilots have not been able to cheat on ELP but the entire ATC establishment has managed to sidestep any change. This is not intended as a criticism of ATCOs 
Mooney_Driver wrote:
IMHO, people who do not understand the ATC language used in any country have no place in the sky.
You don’t need a radio to fly. It’s only when talking to ATC. You don’t need to speak English either, it’s really only needed when flying in English speaking countries. For most GA pilots, English proficiency is more of a scheme and a nuisance. Yet another nuisance, with literally no practical or real world relevance. For those who actually need it professionally or for some other reason, it’s important of course. For the most part it’s more a “tie your shoe laces test”. OK, you can’t do both shoes in 2 seconds, so what?
IMHO, people who do not understand the ATC language used in any country have no place in the sky.
That’s a bit categoric. How about planes without a radio? People flying only outside of controlled airspace?
From a Swiss point of view, your statement is understandable, but there are countries with more space and less cluttered airspace where you can fly long stretches without ever having to talk to any air traffic controller.
You don’t need a radio to fly. It’s only when talking to ATC
How about other planes?
It probably works if you live in a place with a very low GA density. So low that even on the ground there is only one thing moving at a time.
I emphasized need. I don’t know anyone without a radio, but you certainly don’t need a radio. It’s rather funny sometimes. Several private airports requires radio, but there is no ATC or tower, so most of the people are not used to “ATC jargon”, and the language is Norwegian. A foreigner wouldn’t understand a single thing, even if they did speak English (the other way around is no problem though).
