India has jumped five ranks in the Worldwide Educating for the Future Index (WEFFI) 2019.

About WEFFI

• The report is published by The Economist Intelligence Unit. The report and index were commissioned by the Yidan Prize Foundation.
• The index ranks countries based on their abilities to equip students with skill-based education.
• The report analyses the education system from the perspective of skill-based education “in areas such as critical thinking, problem-solving, leadership, collaboration, creativity and entrepreneurship, as well as digital and technical skills.”

Global scenario

• Among the world’s largest economies, the US, UK, France and Russia all fell back in the index, while China, India and Indonesia took steps forward.
• Finland was at the apex of the index, with strengths across each category followed by Sweden.

India’s performance

• India ranked 35th on the overall index in 2019 with a total score of 53, based on three categories – policy environment, teaching environment and overall socio-economic environment.
• India scored 56.3 in policy environment falling from a 61.5 score in 2018.
• India’s score of 52.2 in the teaching environment category and 50.1 in the socio-economic environment category increased significantly from 32.2 and 33.3 in 2018 respectively.
• Earlier, India ranked 40th with an overall score of 41.2 across categories in 2018.

What made India progress?

• The report attributed India’s growth to the new education policy introduced by the government.
• India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in the Union Budget 2020, had highlighted a
• The New Education Policy announced in this year budget under ‘Aspirational India’ will focus on “greater inflow of finance to attract talented teachers, innovate and build better labs.
• The policy will focus further on skill-based education.

Various shortcomings highlighted

• The 2018 WEFFI report had highlighted the shortcomings in India’s education system emphasizing upon its inability to utilise the opportunity of internationalizing its higher education system.
• A decentralized education system is another shortcoming of India’s education policy according to the 2019 report.
• Well-intentioned policy goals relating to future skills development often do not get filtered downward, a hazard in economies such as the US and India that have large, decentralized education systems, the report said.

Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024

Attend Now