The report highlights Malta’s strength in education. Photo: Matthew MirabelliMalta’s human capital development was ranked in 28th place among 122 countries in a report published by the World Economic Forum.
Human capital is broadly defined as the economic value of workers’ skills, knowledge and other attributes such as creativity. The index is based on indicators from education, health and employment.
This was the first report of its kind and is aimed at helping governments, business, universities and civil society institutions identify key areas for focus and investment.
The report highlights Malta’s strength in education but says its performance is weakened by the lack of collaboration in industry to facilitate learning and innovation, and the low level of information exchange.
The report also looks at the “enabling environment”, which incorporates the legal framework, infrastructure and other factors that enable returns to be made on human capital.
While Malta’s highest ranking was in education – 24th place – it performed relatively badly in the enabling environment index, placing 37th.
It was in 30th place in both the workforce and employment index and the health and wellness index.
The report highlights the countries seen as role models for their investment in education, health and employment. The top 10 spots are dominated by European countries, with Switzerland at the very top.
Finland scored the most points for both education and enabling environment.
Switzerland topped the health and wellness section, which relates to a population’s physical and mental wellbeing from childhood to adulthood. This country was also in the forefront in the workforce and employment sector which is to do with the experience, talent, knowledge and training of a country’s working population.
Singapore is the only Asian country in the top 10 and Canada the only one of the two North American countries.
The bottom of the table is occupied by a number of Sub-Saharan countries including Guinea, Burkina Faso and Mozambique.