Australia's education system has been ranked the best in the world by a new report into global prosperity.
The Legatum Prosperity Index, assembled by the Legatum Institute, bills itself as "a uniquely multi-dimensional picture of the world’s nations," ranking 142 countries in economy, entrepreneurship and opportunity, governance, education, personal freedom, safety and security, health and social capital.
Australia is ranked seventh in the overall prosperity ranking, but was awarded top marks for education. The education ranking was determined through analysing data around class size, girls to boys enrolment ratio, secondary and tertiary enrolment, perceptions that children learn and satisfaction with educational quality.
Aside from the chart-topping rank in education, the rest of Australia's marks were hardly impressive. Australia ranked fourth in social capital -- which includes volunteering, charitable donations, helping strangers, trust in others and marriage -- ninth in personal freedom and 10th in governance, but failed to crack the top 10 in any other category.
We ranked 12th in economy, 14th in entrepreneurship and opportunity, 15th in health and 15th in safety and security.
Australian ranked seventh overall out of the 142 countries, the third year in a row we have occupied the #7 spot.
The top positions were, predictably, dominated by Scandinavian nations. Norway topped the list, followed by Switzerland and Denmark, but our trans-Tasman neighbours New Zealand now occupy fourth spot on the global prosperity index.
For more information on the report, click here.