Still most people in non-english speaking countries (I don't count countries like Sweden or Norway where English is their second official language) don't speak English at all, while 1/4 (mostly in cities) know just basics. There's still a minority of people in places like my country, most other European countries, African (except colonies), Asian countries (I won't even count Japan where 97% of people including youth don't even know the basics) who can use english quite fluently.
Yeah they teach english in schools.. in our high schools basic groups are taught what does words "hi", "apple" or "car" mean, english alphabet, basic grammar and that's all.
There are small groups in most schools learning more advanced stuff, in some schools even really hard english but as I said they are still minorities and most of those people won't ever speak english fluently. Also people here don't use english at all. I may know hard english words, I may be good at grammar but I won't ever speak as fluently as you guys who use your english all the time every day as "a tool to survive" - because it's your main and usually only language (no offense).