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Switzerland, Finland and Austria Lead Ranking of Cutting Edge Global Skills

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The second edition of this index analyzes the mastery of essential skills in 60 countries and 11 fields of study.

Switzerland, Finland and Austria Lead Ranking of Cutting Edge Global Skills
Photo: Pete Linforth / Pixabay.
July 24, 2020 By Paola Villafuerte
Reading time 2 minutes
Reading Time: 2 minutes

The second edition of Coursera’s Global Skills Index 2020 provides an analysis of how virtual learning has changed during the pandemic.

Coursera, the leading platform in digital education, announced the launch of the 2020 Global Skills Index (GSI). This report looks at the impact the health crisis has had on skills development among students and within the labor fields. The index compares the mastery of skills in ten industries and eleven areas of study in 60 countries worldwide.

This study was conducted thanks to the more than 65 million students using the Coursera platform globally, including the 15 million new students who have joined since March 2020. It was on this date that it became known that the courses would be open to the public for some time, generating a significant increase in the number of students incorporated into the system.

The GSI aims to develop a timely study of the changes that occurred in virtual learning from the consequences generated by the global pandemic. The report makes clear that “recovery in a post-pandemic world will rely on broad reskilling.” So, the active participation of institutions to give people the same access to these skills is imperative.

The report displays global rankings that were developed in core skills in business, technology, and data science. It shows that Switzerland, Finland, Austria, and Russia were the most consistent in the top five countries in the three ranking categories. By contrast, countries such as Mexico, Venezuela, Peru, Pakistan, and Nigeria are among the most lagging in essential skills in business, technology, and data science.

Top five innovative countries in essential skills

BUSINESS

  1. Switzerland

  2. Austria

  3. Denmark

  4. Finland

  5. United Arab Emirates

TECHNOLOGY

  1. Russia

  2. Belarus

  3. Switzerland

  4. Ukraine

  5. Finland

DATA SCIENCE

  1. Russia

  2. Switzerland

  3. Belgium

  4. Austria

  5. Finland

In addition to this global ranking of essential skills, the report highlighted the following key ideas:

  • Countries with higher skill proficiencies are also those with higher labor force participation rates. A country’s skill proficiency across domains is positively correlated (56%), with the fraction of its working-age population active in its labor force. (Secondary data: World Bank)

  • Countries with equal internet access rates are also those of higher skill proficiencies. There is a significant and positive correlation (65%) between a country’s skill proficiency across domains and the percentage of its population using the internet. (Secondary data: World Bank)

  • The with more highly skilled talent, especially in technology skills, see higher stock returns and less disruption from COVID-19. The correlation between an industry’s skill proficiency and its stock performance in the United States in one year was 43% across all the domains of skills and 39% in the fields of technology. (Secondary data: Fidelity)

  • Of the 200 million higher education students whose studies were interrupted by COVID-19, 80% are located in countries with emerging or lagging skills. Eighty percent of the students enrolled in tertiary education are in countries that have closed schools due to COVID-19 and are listed in the bottom half of the world rankings for business, technology, and data science skills. (Secondary data: UNESCO)

  • The demand for personal development skills such as confidence, stress management, and mindfulness has grown by 1200% among individual learners. People are turning to courses like Yale University’s Science of Well-Being to mitigate mental and emotional distress caused by the pandemic.

“The findings show that higher skills proficiency is linked to economic progress across multiple dimensions, including GDP, labor force participation, and income equality. I hope this report inspires institutions to prioritize skills development as the foundation of economic revival,” said Jeff Maggioncalda, Coursera CEO.

Translation by Daniel Wetta.

Paola Villafuerte

This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0