One might think that the minimum required qualification to teach English to foreigners - or, come to that, to anybody - would be an A level in the subject. And so it is, in most of the world, even though it is widely becoming the norm that teachers have a first degree in it.

And then there's the situation in Malta where, according to Joseph Muscat, chairman of the EFL (English as a Foreign Language) Monitoring Board, "faced with a situation where there are not enough people with this qualification who want to teach EFL, the ...Board has introduced a new English Language examination."

Hello?

Malta already has, and hopes to increase, a market for teaching English to foreigners. And why not? Doesn't almost everybody here start learning English from the cradle? Is it not the second language (an "official" language, even though we all hear often enough that it is not to be described as a "national" one)?

So why can't the EFL board find sufficient people with an English A level? I'll tell you: It is because there are insufficient teachers properly qualified to teach English to the Maltese, in the first place.

The standard of English that one hears every day, even in Sliema - where, whatever anybody says, it is the national language, for you hear no other - is atrocious.

There are people so ignorant of their real prowess in English that they frequently rush to this very page to point out what they believe (invariably wrongly) to be other correspondents' gaffes.

Mr Muscat and his team should help themselves by encouraging - nay, by demanding - better teaching of English in Malta's schools.

First remove the beam from your own eye.

Otherwise any so-called "English" qualification, whether for teacher or student, becomes as meaningless as a Maltese driving licence, or a locally awarded certificate of competence as a yachtsman.