The rankings, which take into account cognitive skills and educational attainment, see Finland and South Korea in the top two places.
To compile the list, researchers used data from the international OECD/PISA, TIMMS and PIRLS assessments in reading, maths and science, as well as data on literacy and school and university graduation rates.
The work has been carried out by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) and shows high-performers Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore in third, fourth and fifth places ahead of the UK. Canada was ranked 10th and the US 17th in the table.
The findings have been published in a report from Pearson called The Learning Curve and compiled into a free online database to allow researchers and policy-makers to compare data from the 50 countries in the Index to see what factors influence educational standards and performance.
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