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Latest World Ranking on Education based on Science and Mathematics.

The biggest ever global school rankings have been
published, with Asian countries in the top five
places and African countries at the bottom.
Singapore heads the table, followed by Hong Kong,
with Ghana at the bottom.
The UK is in 20th place, among higher achieving
European countries, with the US in 28th.
The OECD economic think tank says the
comparisons - based on test scores in 76
countries - show the link between education and
economic growth.
"This is the first time we have a truly global scale
of the quality of education," said the OECD's
education director, Andreas Schleicher.
"The idea is to give more countries, rich and poor,
access to comparing themselves against the
world's education leaders, to discover their relative
strengths and weaknesses, and to see what the
long-term economic gains from improved quality
in schooling could be for them," he said.
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The top performer, Singapore, had high levels of
illiteracy into the 1960s, said Mr Schleicher,
showing how much progress could be made.
In the UK, the study shows about one in five
youngsters leave school without reaching a basic
level of education - and the OECD says that
reducing this number and improving skills could
add trillions of dollars to the UK economy.
"I think it's partly a mindset, an expectation. There
are plenty of examples of schools that have raised
the bar dramatically," said education minister Lord
Nash.
The analysis, based on test scores in maths and
science, is a much wider global map of education
standards than the OECD's Pisa tests, which focus
on more affluent industrialised countries.
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This latest league table, ranking more than a third
of the world's nations, shows how countries such
as Iran, South Africa, Peru and Thailand would
appear on an international scale.
It shows once again the poor performance of the
United States, slipping behind successful European
countries and being overtaken by Vietnam. It also
highlights the decline of Sweden, with the OECD
warning last week that it had serious problems in
its education system.
iFrame
Figures mapped above show estimated growth in
GDP over the lifetime of pupils. The figures
assume that all pupils are enrolled in schools and
that they achieve at least basic skills.
More stories from the BBC's Knowledge economy
series looking at education from a global
perspective and how to get in touch
The rankings are based on an amalgamation of
international assessments, including the OECD's
Pisa tests, the TIMSS tests run by US-based
academics and TERCE tests in Latin America,
putting developed and developing countries on a
single scale.
The findings will be formally presented at the
World Education Forum in South Korea next week,
where the United Nations is to convene a
conference on targets for raising global education
by 2030.
'Every student to succeed'
The top five places are all taken by Asian countries
- Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and
Japan.
The five lowest-ranked countries are Oman in
72nd, Morocco, Honduras, South Africa and Ghana
in last spot.
"If you go to an Asian classroom you'll find
teachers who expect every student to succeed.
There's a lot of rigour, a lot of focus and
coherence," says Mr Schleicher.
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"These countries are also very good at attracting
the most talented teachers in the most challenging
classrooms, so that every student has access to
excellent teachers."
The report, published by the OECD and written by
Eric Hanushek from Stanford University and Ludger
Woessmann from Munich University, argues that
the standard of education is a "powerful predictor
of the wealth that countries will produce in the
long run".
Take the test: How would your maths skills
compare with the world's teenagers?
"Poor education policies and practices leave many
countries in what amounts to a permanent state of
economic recession," says the report.
Millennium targets
Improving education would produce "long-term
economic gains that are going to be phenomenal",
says Mr Schleicher.
If Ghana, the lowest ranked country, achieved
basic skills for all its 15-year-olds, the report says
that it would expand its current GDP by 38 times,
over the lifetime of today's youngsters.
The first "truly global" measure of education
standards, says the OECD's Andreas Schleicher
The report will provide evidence for next week's
World Education Forum of how achieving education
targets can deliver economic gains.
The milestone conference, under the auspices of
the United Nations, will mark 15 years since the
setting of education targets by world leaders.
These millennium targets for education, such as
providing all children with a primary education,
have not been fully achieved.
But the World Education Forum will set another
round of global targets for the next 15 years.
Countries ranked on maths and science
1. Singapore
2. Hong Kong
3. South Korea
4. Japan (joint)
4. Taiwan (joint)
6. Finland
7. Estonia
8. Switzerland
9. Netherlands
10. Canada
11. Poland
12. Vietnam
13. Germany
14. Australia
15. Ireland
16. Belgium
17. New Zealand
18. Slovenia
19. Austria
20. United Kingdom
21. Czech Republic
22. Denmark
23. France
24. Latvia
25. Norway
26. Luxembourg
27. Spain
28. Italy (joint)
28. United States (joint)
30. Portugal
31. Lithuania
32. Hungary
33. Iceland
34. Russia
35. Sweden
36. Croatia
37. Slovak Republic
38. Ukraine
39. Israel
40. Greece
41. Turkey
42. Serbia
43. Bulgaria
44. Romania
45. UAE
46. Cyprus
47. Thailand
48. Chile
49. Kazakhstan
50. Armenia
51. Iran
52. Malaysia
53. Costa Rica
54. Mexico
55. Uruguay
56. Montenegro
57. Bahrain
58. Lebanon
59. Georgia
60. Brazil
61. Jordan
62. Argentina
63. Albania
64. Tunisia
65. Macedonia
66. Saudi Arabia
67. Colombia
68. Qatar
69. Indonesia
70. Botswana
71. Peru
72. Oman
73. Morocco
74. Honduras
75. South Africa
76. Ghana
Source: BBC