South Africa has scored 42 points on The Knowledge Project’s first Global Knowledge 100-point Index, against a world average of 47.

The index identifies knowledge as an integral part of human life, affecting its social, economic and cultural aspects, as well as an engine for comprehensive and sustainable human development.

The Global Knowledge Index is based on a combination of six sectoral indices including preuniversity education; technical vocational education and training (TVET); higher education; information and communications technology; research, development and innovation (RDI); and, finally, economy, in addition to a general sub-index on the general enabling environment.

South Africa scored 38.1 for its preuniversity education index, 42.4 for TVET, 40.7 for higher education and a low 25.7 for RDI. However, in the indices of information and communications technology and a general enabling environment, the country scored 50.2 and 59.8 respectively.

The index is calculated through 133 variables covering various vital sectors in the country, such as enrolment, graduation and drop-out rates in schools; literacy; unemployment; life expectancy at birth; e-government; political stability; regulatory and legal frameworks; patents; private-sector indicators; quality and availability of human resources (students, teachers, professionals and researchers), among other criteria.

The country further ranked eighty-first on the overall global index of 131 countries, between Tunisia and India.

Switzerland took first place with 71.8 points out of 100, closely followed by Singapore (69.5), Finland (68.5), Sweden (68.3), Netherlands (68), the US(67.2), Luxembourg (66.2), the United Kingdom (65.6), Denmark (65.2) and Norway (64.3).