Brunei Scores Well in World Economic Forum's Global Human Capital Report 2017

Sultanate scores well in Global Human Capital Report 2017
September 24, 2017


| Azlan Othman |

BRUNEI Darussalam is ranked 5th in Southeast Asia and 58th in the world in the Global Human Capital Report 2017 issued by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

According to the report, Brunei – categorised under a High Income Group – progressed to 58th this year after earning an overall 62.82 points. The Sultanate was not assessed last year.

Brunei recorded strong scores across ‘know-how’, ‘deployment’ and ‘development.’ In the know-how category, it scored high in high-skilled employment sub-index (in 23rd place) and primary education enrolment rate (22nd place), quality of primary schools (24th ), quality education system (33rd) sub-index under the category of development.

But the Sultanate is held back in the ‘capacity’ category in primary and secondary education attainment rate and only fared better in the literacy and numeracy sub index.

Of the 10 Southeast Asian countries included in the report’s Human Capital Index, Singapore (11th globally) came in tops, followed by Malaysia (33rd globally) and Thailand (40th globally). The Philippines (50th globally) and Brunei Darussalam (58th globally) rounded up the top five.

Globally, the Top 10 of this year’s list is led by smaller European countries. Norway topped the list, followed by Finland (2nd), Switzerland (3rd) as well as large economies such as the United States (4th) and Germany (6th).

In the report, the WEF ranks 130 countries on how well they are developing their human capital on a scale from zero (worst) to 100 (best) across four thematic dimensions and five distinct age groups to capture the full human capital potential profile of a country.

WEF founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab said the Fourth Industrial Revolution does not just disrupt employment, it creates a shortfall of newly-required skills.

“Therefore, we are facing a global talent crisis. We need a new mind-set and a true revolution to adapt our educational systems to the education needed for the future work force,” Schwab said in its statement.

WEF head of education, gender and work, Saadia Zahidi, said countries’ strategies for developing human capital should vary according to demographic structure.

“However, every country risks creating lost generations if they fail to adopt a more holistic approach to nurturing talent that takes into account a proactive approach to managing the transition from education to employment and to ongoing learning and skills acquisition,” she added.

The report also found that on average, the world has developed only 62 per cent of its human capital as measured by this index.

Across the index, only 25 nations have tapped 70 per cent of their people’s human capital or more. In addition, 50 countries scored between 60 per cent and 70 per cent.

A further 41 countries score between 50 per cent and 60 per cent, while 14 countries remain below 50 per cent, meaning these nations are currently leveraging less than half of their human capital.

The four thematic dimensions used in the ranking were capacity, deployment, development, and know-how.

The capacity sub-index quantifies the existing stock of education across generations. The deployment sub-index covers skills application and accumulation of skills through work.

The development sub-index reflects current efforts to educate, skill and upskill the student body and the working age population; while the know-how sub-index captures the breadth and depth of specialised skills use at work.Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin