Index of cognitive skills and educational attainment

• A to Z
• Overall Index
  rank and score
• Cognitive Skills
  rank and score
• Educational Attainment
  rank and score

A to Z	Overall Index rank and score	Cognitive skills rank and score	Educational Attainment rank and score
Finland	[Rank 1]1.26	[Rank 1]1.50	[Rank 3]0.79
South Korea	[Rank 2]1.23	[Rank 4]1.24	[Rank 1]1.21
Hong Kong-China	[Rank 3]0.90	[Rank 3]1.26	[Rank 17]0.20*
Japan	[Rank 4]0.89	[Rank 5]1.04	[Rank 8]0.59
Singapore	[Rank 5]0.84	[Rank 2]1.39	[Rank 33]-0.26*
United Kingdom	[Rank 6]0.60	[Rank 12]0.50	[Rank 2]0.81
Netherlands	[Rank 7]0.59	[Rank 7]0.72	[Rank 11]0.32*
New Zealand	[Rank 8]0.56	[Rank 9]0.61	[Rank 9]0.47*
Switzerland	[Rank 9]0.55	[Rank 8]0.71	[Rank 13]0.22
Canada	[Rank 10]0.54	[Rank 6]0.72	[Rank 20]0.18
Ireland	[Rank 11]0.53	[Rank 16]0.42	[Rank 5]0.74
Denmark	[Rank 12]0.50	[Rank 17]0.41	[Rank 6]0.68
Australia	[Rank 13]0.46	[Rank 11]0.54	[Rank 12]0.31
Poland	[Rank 14]0.43	[Rank 20]0.26	[Rank 4]0.77
Germany	[Rank 15]0.41	[Rank 10]0.56	[Rank 23]0.12
Belgium	[Rank 16]0.35	[Rank 15]0.43	[Rank 17]0.20*
United States	[Rank 17]0.35	[Rank 14]0.44	[Rank 21]0.16
Hungary	[Rank 18]0.33	[Rank 13]0.46	[Rank 25]0.07
Slovakia	[Rank 19]0.32	[Rank 25]0.16	[Rank 7]0.65
Russia	[Rank 20]0.26	[Rank 19]0.29	[Rank 19]0.20*
Sweden	[Rank 21]0.24	[Rank 18]0.31	[Rank 24]0.08
Czech Republic	[Rank 22]0.20	[Rank 24]0.20	[Rank 15]0.21
Austria	[Rank 23]0.15	[Rank 21]0.24	[Rank 28]-0.03*
Italy	[Rank 24]0.14	[Rank 23]0.20	[Rank 27]0.02
France	[Rank 25]0.13	[Rank 22]0.23	[Rank 30]-0.06*
Norway	[Rank 26]0.11	[Rank 27]-0.07	[Rank 10]0.47
Portugal	[Rank 27]0.01	[Rank 28]-0.09	[Rank 16]0.21
Spain	[Rank 28]-0.08	[Rank 26]-0.01	[Rank 32]-0.24
Israel	[Rank 29]-0.15	[Rank 30]-0.34	[Rank 14]0.22*
Bulgaria	[Rank 30]-0.23	[Rank 31]-0.37	[Rank 26]0.05*
Greece	[Rank 31]-0.31	[Rank 29]-0.25	[Rank 34]-0.43
Romania	[Rank 32]-0.60	[Rank 32]-0.88	[Rank 29]-0.04*
Chile	[Rank 33]-0.66	[Rank 34]-1.07	[Rank 22]0.15*
Turkey	[Rank 34]-1.24	[Rank 33]-0.97	[Rank 38]-1.79
Argentina	[Rank 35]-1.41	[Rank 39]-2.02	[Rank 31]-0.17*
Colombia	[Rank 36]-1.46	[Rank 37]-1.91	[Rank 35]-0.56*
Thailand	[Rank 37]-1.46	[Rank 35]-1.28	[Rank 39]-1.81
Mexico	[Rank 38]-1.60	[Rank 36]-1.53	[Rank 37]-1.74
Brazil	[Rank 39]-1.65	[Rank 38]-2.01	[Rank 36]-0.94*
Indonesia	[Rank 40]-2.03	[Rank 40]-2.04	[Rank 40]-2.01

The Global Index of Cognitive Skills and Educational Attainment compares the performance of 39 countries and one region (Hong Kong) on two categories of education: Cognitive Skills and Educational Attainment. The Index provides a snapshot of the relative performance of countries based on their education outputs.

The indicators used in this Index are:

- Cognitive Skills: PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS scores in Reading, Maths and Science

- Educational Attainment: literacy and graduation rates

How is the Index calculated?

The overall index score is the weighted sum of the underlying two category scores. Likewise, the category scores are the weighted sum of the underlying indicator scores (see below for the default weights applied). Each indicator score is calculated on the basis of a z-score normalisation process. This process enables the comparison and aggregation of different data sets (on different scales), and the scoring of countries on the basis of their comparative performance.

What is a z-score?

A z-score indicates how many standard deviations an observation is above or below the mean. To compute the z-score, the EIU first calculated each indicator’s mean and standard deviation using the data for the countries in the Index, and then the distance of the observation from the mean in terms of standard deviations.

How are the categories and indicators weighted?

The overall index score is the weighted sum of the underlying two category scores. Likewise, the category scores are the weighted sum of the underlying indicator scores. The default weighting for the Index is two-thirds to cognitive skills and one-third to educational attainment. Within the cognitive skills category, the Grade 8 tests’ score accounts for 60% while the Grade 4 tests’ score accounts for 40% (Reading, Maths and Science all account for equal weights). Within the educational attainment category, the literacy rate and graduation rates account for equal weights.

The data within the Index was last collected and/or calculated in September 2012. For the full methodology please refer to Appendix 1 in The Learning Curve Report.

Note: *Because of the variation in how countries measure graduation rates, the EIU followed the Advisory Panel's suggestion in using OECD graduation rate data, which uses one main definition. When OECD data was not available, national ministry or statistics bureau data was sanity-checked and then used if deemed comparable. In some cases, no data on upper secondary and/or tertiary graduation rates was available. In this case, the country was awarded the mean score for this indicator. One disadvantage of giving a country the mean score is that if in reality it performs worse than the average in this indicator, the Index boosts its score, and vice versa. Nevertheless, this was deemed the most transparent and fair method available. This also applies to one country for the literacy rate, where no internationally comparable data was found to be available.