Where India Stands in Talent Development?

The Human Capital Index measures a country’s ability to Nurture, Develop and Organize talent for economic growth. Recently, World Economic Forum published the Human Capital Index. Finland occupied the First position in the Human Capital Index. India occupied the 105thrank out of the total 130 countries in the list. It is based on 46 indicators about how well countries are developing and deploying their human capital, focusing on education, skills development and providing employment.

Human Capital Index
Overall Index
Country	score	Rank
Finland	85.86	1
Norway	84.64	2
Switzerland	84.61	3
Japan	83.44	4
Sweden	83.29	5
New zealand	82.79	6
Denmark	82.47	7
Netherlands	82.18	8
Canada	81.95	9
Belgium	81.59	10
BRICS Countries
Russia	77.86	28
china	67.81	71
Brazil	64.51	83
South Africa	62.97	88
India	57.73	105

“Happy Note” It’s really happy to hear that India has got better rankings on quality of education system (39th), staff training(46th) and ease of finding skilled employees (45th indicators).This suggests “a primary avenue for improvement for the country consists of expanding access to its numerous learning and employment opportunities”.

“Improved but not enough” Although the country’s educational attainment has improved markedly over the different age groups (in 2015 India ranked 100th out of 124 countries), its youth literacy rate is 90 percent (103rd in the world). “India also ranks 121st rank on labour force participation.

In conclusion, it can be said that the skew in India towards younger generations highlights the disconnection between today’s education system and the skills required in the labour market. In order to be globally competitive, India must realise this untapped potential and convert its educated population into skilled labour by focusing on creating right mix of workers whose skills are not outdated and match the needs of the market. What is more, India would have to work on its social welfare schemes for the aged, child education and labour friendly in order to see a holistic improvement in the score.