The quality of higher education and training is a crucial determinant of a country’s competitiveness and its capacity for economic growth.

The World Economic Forum’s annual Global Competitiveness Report evaluates 144 of the world’s economies on the quality of their education systems as evaluated by business leaders, plus secondary and tertiary enrolment rates and the extent of staff training.

Finland emerges as the country with the strongest higher education and training systems to support economic competitiveness and growth, with Singapore a close second.

Other European economies take five more of the top places, along with the UAE, USA and New Zealand.

The data for this ranking is taken from a number of sources including UNESCO Institute for Statistics Data Centre, UNICEF childinfo.org, Sistema de Información de tendencias Educativas de América Latina (SITEAL), national sources and the World Economic Forum Executive Opinion Survey.

If you’d like to learn more, read the Global Competitiveness Report and 10 ways countries can improve their competitiveness.

The 2015 Global Competitiveness Report will be released on 30th September.

Author: Paul Muggeridge is Head of Content at Formative Content.

Image: A Master of Business Administration (MBA) student works on a computer. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi.