Papua New Guinea
East Asia & Pacific · Lower middle income· 10.39M inhabitants
Last updated: May 27, 2025
Fragile/Conflict-Affected Country: This country is classified as experiencing institutional and social fragility. Data may not reflect the current situation due to instability.
Futures readiness profile
Key insights: Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea lags behind global peers in Governance (38, 36th percentile), Human Capital (28, 12th percentile), Infrastructure (19, 5th percentile), and School Access and Gender Parity (10, 28th percentile). The remaining dimension is closer to the global average, but does not demonstrate global leadership or advanced futures readiness. Broad-based, high-impact interventions are needed to drive overall education futures readiness and resilience.
Composite GEFRI Score
26.63
16th percentile
Higher scores indicate greater education futures readiness
Component scores
School Access and Gender Parity10.00
Below global avg. · 28th %-tile
Governance38.25
Below global avg. · 36th %-tile
Captures the effectiveness and quality of policies, regulations, and governance that shape the educational environment.
Infrastructure18.53
Below global avg. · 5th %-tile
Measures the availability and quality of basic digital and electrical infrastructure that supports education.
Human Capital28.11
Below global avg. · 12th %-tile
Assesses the educational attainment and capacity of a country’s population, focusing on access and completion at secondary and tertiary levels as well as literacy.
Innovation38.27
Near the global average · 42nd %-tile
Reflects a country’s capacity to foster, produce, and apply new knowledge and technology in society and education.
Regional peers: East Asia & Pacific
| Global rank | Regional rank | Country | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 1 | Korea, Rep. | 80.49 |
| 4 | 2 | Singapore | 79.66 |
| 6 | 3 | Hong Kong SAR, China | 79.05 |
| 8 | 4 | Australia | 78.42 |
| 10 | 5 | Japan | 78.25 |
| 17 | 6 | New Zealand | 75.41 |
| — | — | Northern Mariana Islands(microstate) | 71.23 |
| — | — | New Caledonia(microstate) | 70.42 |
| — | — | Guam(microstate) | 69.37 |
| — | — | American Samoa(microstate) | 68.93 |
| — | — | French Polynesia(microstate) | 68.41 |
| 45 | 7 | China | 64.25 |
| 48 | 8 | Thailand | 62.96 |
| 49 | 9 | Malaysia | 62.68 |
| 57 | 10 | Brunei Darussalam | 60.96 |
| 61 | 11 | Indonesia | 59.35 |
| 63 | 12 | Mongolia | 59.27 |
| 67 | 13 | Macao SAR, China | 57.83 |
| — | — | Palau(microstate) | 57.60 |
| — | — | Tuvalu(microstate) | 57.31 |
| 70 | 14 | Viet Nam | 56.58 |
| 72 | 15 | Fiji | 56.51 |
| 74 | 16 | Philippines | 56.32 |
| — | — | Nauru(microstate) | 54.97 |
| — | — | Kiribati(microstate) | 52.36 |
| — | — | Samoa(microstate) | 51.55 |
| — | — | Tonga(microstate) | 50.38 |
| 106 | 17 | Timor-Leste | 47.76 |
| — | — | Micronesia, Fed. Sts.(microstate) | 46.58 |
| 110 | 18 | Korea, Dem. People's Rep. | 44.79 |
| — | — | Marshall Islands(microstate) | 44.62 |
| 122 | 19 | Vanuatu | 40.07 |
| 126 | 20 | Cambodia | 36.21 |
| 131 | 21 | Myanmar | 33.54 |
| 132 | 22 | Solomon Islands | 33.52 |
| 136 | 23 | Lao PDR | 31.98 |
| 150 | 24 | Papua New Guinea | 26.63 |