Vietnam is ranked 48 out of 157 countries and territories in terms of human capital index (HCI) with a 0.67 score, which is unchanged from last year, claiming the second spot in ASEAN behind Singapore, according to the World Banks’s latest World Development Report.
The HCI measures the consequences of neglecting investments in human capital in terms of the lost productivity of the next generation of workers. In countries with the lowest human capital investments today, the report suggested that the workforce of the future will only be one-third to one-half as productive as it could be if people enjoyed full health and received a high-quality education.
“By integrating into global value chains, Vietnamese workers developed their foreign-language abilities, building additional human capital that allows them to expand into other markets,” stated the World Bank in the report.
According to the report, a Vietnamese child with full access to education and health service, by the time of maturity, would have a labor productivity at 67%, which is in equal to China. In Southeast Asia, this rate for Singapore is 88%, Malaysia 62%, Thailand 60%, the Philippines 55% and Indonesia 53%.
Education and health service are two components of the HCI, while education is evaluated through harmonized test score, health services based on the rate of children not stunted.
Vietnamese students scored second in learning in ASEAN behind Singapore and at the top tier of the world, but remained low in terms of stunting, which was the main reason for Vietnam’s moderate ranking.
Singapore stood at the top spot worldwide with 0.88 score, followed by South Korea and Japan at 0.84 and Hong Kong (China) 0.82, indicating a strong focus on human development of the East Asian region.
