Bandar Seri Begawan - Brunei Darussalam has been ranked 36th among 129 countries in Unesco`s Education for All Development (EFA) Index under its Global Monitoring Report (GMR) 2009.
Kazakhstan topped the list with a score 0.995 followed by Japan 0.994), Germany (0.994), Norway (0.994) and the UK (0.993) to complete the top five.
South Korea was ranked 20th at 0.984. Brunei`s score was 0.972.
The EFA Development Index (EDI) is based on the calculation of data provided on four categories: the percentage of primary school-age children enrolled in schools, the adult literacy rate, the gender specific EFA rate and the survival rate to Grade 5.
Brunei scored a high 0.998 under the survival rate to Grade 5 category, 0.974 under the primary enrolment category, 0.946 under the adult literacy rate category and 0.970 under the gender-specific EFA category.
The list includes only the 129 countries which provided the complete set of indicators required to calculate the EDI and so does not include many countries including developed ones as well as fragile states with weak education statistics systems.
Among the countries not included in the report were the United States, Australia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Of the 129 countries, the top 56 were placed in the High EDI category including Malaysia which was ranked 45th. Positions 57 to 100 were placed in the Medium EDI category and including Kuwait (66), Indonesia (71), Myanmar (84) and the Philippines (86).
Countries from positions 101 to 129 were placed in the Low EDI category and include India (102), Cambodia (104), Lao PDR (108), Bangladesh (109), Pakistan (118) and Chad (129).
Malaysian Education Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein represented the Southeast Asia Ministers of Education (Seameo) at the meeting held from Tuesday to Thursday.
Malaysia`s improved position from 56th place to 45th (0.965) out of the 129 proves that Malaysia, a staunch supporter of Unesco`s EFA agenda, had successfully leaped from the middle level in the GMR 2008 (0.945) to the high level in the EDI GMR 2009 (0.965), said Hishammuddin.
The 0.02 increase in the EDI score was based on the improvement of the scores in the four evaluated categories.
The GMR annual report is Unesco`s mechanism to monitor education development in member countries in its bid to achieve the EFA agenda by 2015.
Source:
http://www.brudirect.com (December 20, 2008)