ISLAMABAD - Pakistan ranks 134 of 157 countries in the Human Capital Index of the World Bank, below other South Asian nations including Afghanistan.
The World Bank Group unveiled a new system to rank countries based on their success in developing human capital, an effort to prod governments to invest more effectively in education and healthcare.
The Human Capital Index measures the amount of human capital that a child born today can expect to attain by age 18, given the risks of poor health and education that prevail in the country where he or she lives.
The rankings, based on health, education and survivability measures, assess the future productivity and earnings potential for citizens of 157 of the World Bank’s member nations, and ultimately those countries’ potential economic growth.
According to the Human Capital Index, a child born in Pakistan today will be 39 percent as productive when she grows up as she could be if she enjoyed complete education and full health.
According to the report, a Pakistani child was expected to complete just 8.8 years of education if enrolled in school at age 4. These average school years are much below the global average of 11.2 years of education that children could expect to attain. Even in South Asia, an average child could expect to attain 10.5 years of education.