Where does the Netherlands stand on Learning?
This page reads one capability from the published data and is recomputed with every release. It separates what the Netherlands does, which makes the score, from what the country has, which sits beside the score, and places the country among the 10 countries at the nearest income. The text describes the data and recommends no policy.
What does the score rest on?
The Learning score is the equal-weight mean of the positions of three indicators on a 0 to 100 scale that every country sets together. Confidence measures the evidence behind the score and sits beside it as a second number.
The Learning score tracks GDP per capita at r = 0.71 across 123 countries.
Observed indicators
- Position on the scale84.1Peer median78.010 peers with a value
Human Capital Index
0.79 index 0-1
World Bank (HD.HCI.OVRL), 2020
- Position on the scale49.2Peer median60.79 peers with a value
Firms offering formal training
40.4 % of firms
World Bank (IC.FRM.TRNG.ZS), 2025
- Position on the scale95.3Peer median81.710 peers with a value
Research citation impact
1.9 ratio to world average
OpenAlex (citation_normalized_percentile.is_in_top_10_percent), 2021
No comparable source yet, so lowering confidence: adult learning participation.
What the Netherlands has to work with
Beside each condition, two r values read every country at once, one against income and one against the capability score. Where the r with income is much higher than the r with the score, having the condition goes with being rich more than with the capability measured.
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
Tertiary enrolmentWorld Bank (SE.TER.ENRR), 2023
86.6 % gross, rank 15 of 124. Gross enrolment ratio in tertiary education.
A condition, not scored: enrolment counts people in formal education and records nothing learned (D122).
- r with income: 0.82 (122 countries)
- r with the Learning score: 0.62 (122 countries)
- Peer median: 79.2 % gross (10 peers with a value)
Public education expenditureWorld Bank (SE.XPD.TOTL.GD.ZS), 2022
5.2 % of GDP, rank 36 of 125. Government expenditure on education as a share of GDP.
A condition, not scored: public spending on education is a pure input, and learning is what the dimension asks about (D122).
- r with income: 0.31 (123 countries)
- r with the Learning score: 0.29 (123 countries)
- Peer median: 5.3 % of GDP (10 peers with a value)
Vocational share of secondaryWorld Bank (SE.SEC.ENRL.VO.ZS), 2018
37.4 % of secondary, rank 7 of 125. Vocational pupils as a share of total secondary enrolment.
A condition, not scored: the share of secondary pupils on a vocational track describes how a school system is built, not what anyone learns in it, and higher is not unambiguously better (D141). It marks a route into skilled work that does not run through university. Learning reads research citation impact, firm training and the human capital index instead.
- r with income: 0.5 (123 countries)
- r with the Learning score: 0.39 (123 countries)
- Peer median: 20.8 % of secondary (10 peers with a value)
Where does the Netherlands sit among its peers?
The peers are the 10 countries at the nearest income. Income is GDP per capita at purchasing power parity, in constant international dollars, for the latest year the World Bank publishes, and distance is measured on a log scale, where half and double are equally far. No country is picked by hand, and the set changes when the data does.
In this release peer income runs from US$ 57,990 to US$ 85,732, and the Netherlands has US$ 71,378 (2025).
- Solid ring: usable or good evidence
- Broken ring: thin evidence, opening further as confidence falls
- The shaded band is the middle half of the set and the line inside it is the median.
- Australia: 80.7
- Switzerland: 80.0
- Belgium: 79.6
- Sweden: 79.5
- Canada: 76.5
- Netherlands: 76.2
- United Arab Emirates: 75.1
- Germany: 66.2
- Denmark: 66.0
- Austria: 63.9
- United States: 61.6
- DenmarkUS$ 72,723, 202566.0
- United Arab EmiratesUS$ 69,702, 202475.1
- United StatesUS$ 76,931, 202561.6
- AustriaUS$ 63,970, 202563.9
- BelgiumUS$ 63,488, 202579.6
- SwedenUS$ 63,362, 202579.5
- GermanyUS$ 62,824, 202566.2
- AustraliaUS$ 60,194, 202580.7
- SwitzerlandUS$ 85,732, 202580.0
- CanadaUS$ 57,990, 202576.5
What separates the Netherlands from its peers?
The Netherlands scores 76.2 on Learning, above the median of the 10 scored peers, which is 75.8.
Indicators placed above the peer median on the scale: human Capital Index and research citation impact.
Indicators placed below the peer median on the scale: firms offering formal training.
The Netherlands has more than the peer median of tertiary enrolment and vocational share of secondary.
The Netherlands has less than the peer median of public education expenditure.
Each sentence compares one position with one median. Why a difference exists, and what to do about it, lie outside this data.
What this reading does not show
- A national score is a coarse proxy. A capability forms in firms, cities, networks and groups below the level of the country, and a national average only describes the conditions they work in.
- Peers share income and nothing else. Size, production structure, region and political regime are outside the rule, and a set of 10 countries can change with any revision to GDP.
- An r reads the whole set at once and says nothing about one country alone. A correlation does not show a cause either.
- The known artefacts that bear on Learning, described on the limits page: artefact A7.
- And the ones every score in the benchmark carries: artefact A8, artefact A10.