·         Finland and South Korea top the table of education 'superpowers' with Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore close behind

·         New global education data bank drawn from fifty nations offers new insights into the “black box” of educational outcomes 

Pearson is today publishing The Learning Curve: a new landmark report designed to help policymakers, school leaders and academics identify the key factors which drive improved educational outcomes.

The global study, carried out independently by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), includes a new Global Index of Cognitive Skills and Educational Attainment, drawing on existing data from the international OECD-PISA, TIMMS and PIRLS assessments, as well as country-level data about literacy and school and university completion rates.

·         Finland and South Korea top the new Index

·         Perennial high-performers Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore are close behind

·         Of the forty countries with sufficient data to include, the swiftly emerging economies of Mexico, Brazil and Indonesia are placed lowest on the Index.

The Learning Curve also provides policy lessons and internationally comparable data on education alongside economic and social data from 50 countries in a new publicly accessible, open-source database - the Learning Curve Data Bank -published online at http://thelearningcurve.pearson.com.

The Data Bank will enable researchers and policymakers to connect education inputs and outcomes with wider social and economic outcomes more easily than ever before. The Data Bank includes factors such as:

·         Education inputs: governmental spending on education, school entrance age, teacher salaries and degree of school choice

·         Education outcomes: literacy rates and graduation rates from school and university

·         Economic and social outcomes: national unemployment rates, GDP, life expectancy and prison population

The policy lessons

·         Income matters, but culture may matter more

The expert analysis in the report suggests that, more important than money, is the level of support for education within the surrounding culture. While there is no doubt that money invested in education reaps rewards, cultural change around education and ambition is equally, if not more, important than income in promoting better educational outcomes.

·         Good teachers are essential and need respect

There is no substitute for good teachers. The impact of good teachers extends beyond positive educational outcomes and can be linked to positive societal factors, such as lower levels of teenage pregnancy and a greater tendency to save for retirement. Creating the best teachers is about more than paying a good salary. The best performing countries attract top talent, train teachers throughout their careers and allow them freedom too.

John Fallon, Pearson’s chief executive designate, said:

“We’re urging all governments to commit to recording and sharing more data, so that globally we can really understand what works, equipping teachers and schools with the tools they need to produce students who successfully shape the economies and societies of the future. And we are making this data open to other researchers and experts, so they too can contribute to the debate."

Denis McCauley, the Economist Intelligence Unit's executive editor, business research, said: