India has been ranked at low 105th position globally out of the total 130, in World Economic Forum (WEF) worldwide Human Capital Index, which measures countries’ ability to nurture, develop and deploy talent for economic growth.
WEF in its report said that the country has optimized just 57 per cent of its human capital endowment placing it in the top of the bottom quartile of the Index. The report stated that though the country’s educational attainment has improved over the different age groups, its youth literacy rate is still only 90 per cent which is at 103rd position in the world, behind other leading emerging markets.
Further, India also ranked poorly on labour force participation, partially due to one of the world’s largest employment gender gaps. However, there was some positive too, in the report India has got better rankings of 39th on quality of education system, staff training with rank 46 and ease of finding skilled employees with 45th rank .Moreover, the WEF report also stated that India had the largest share at nearly 78 million in the global distribution of tertiary degree holders.
On the global front, Finland, Norway and Switzerland hold the top three positions, utilising around 85 per cent of their human capital. Japan and Sweden moved up to 4th and 5th places, followed by New Zealand, Denmark, the Netherlands, Canada and Belgium in top ten. Last year, India was ranked 100th out of total 124 countries included in the 2015 index.