More Japanese children take the Eiken English test

More and more children in Japan are taking an English test called Eiken. The Eiken Foundation^*1 of Japan, the group that runs the test, reported this on August 15, 2025. The news was part of a column^*2 in the group's yearly report, the Integrated Report 2025.

In the 2024 school year, 375,991 elementary school^*3 students took the test. That is about 1.5 times the number from ten years before, in 2014.

The Eiken test has many levels. The growth is mostly at Grade 4 and the levels above it. The number of children taking Grade 4 is about 1.6 times the number in 2014. For Grade 3, it is about 1.9 times, and for Grade Pre-2, it is about 2 times.

The children are also getting better at English. More of them have reached the A1 level (Grade 3) and the A2 level (Grade Pre-2) of the CEFR, a European scale^*4 for language ability. Their reading, listening, writing, and speaking are all going up.

Why is this happening? The foundation thinks one reason is a change in schools. English is now a regular subject in Japanese elementary schools. Because of this, schools have clearer goals for what children should learn in English.

1. *1 foundation: a group that uses its money to do work for the public, not to make money
2. *2 column: a short piece of writing on one topic in a report or newspaper
3. *3 elementary school: a school for young children, from about 6 to 12 years old
4. *4 scale: a set of steps or levels used to measure something