In a country with limited natural resources surrounded by an evermore interconnected world, policies which develop the capacities of a country’s citizenry move to the center of economic policy. A competent workforce, in fact, underlies a modern and evolving legislative framework, an effective public administration, and smart monetary and fiscal policy. And a solid physical infrastructure means nothing if there are no products pushed through it.

The Czech Republic tops its other former Soviet neighbors in developing such a human resource policy. Yet, again, it still lags far behind countries such as Austria and Netherlands, and overall is 19% below the European average. Erasing this 19% deficit and turning this area of policy into a competitive advantage within the EU should be policy number one for all political parties.

Twenty-one indicators were selected. The country has a competitive advantage in two, and a disadvantage in 12. It is doing reasonably well in traditional education, but is far behind in training and education after university. The labor force works long hours, but at a lower productive per hour worked. Not enough of that work force has a university education, and the number in high tech manufacturing is below ever other comparative country except Austria. The ability to convert education into commercial research success is poor; although test scores are high, the country is 90% below the EU average in patent applications.

Strengths. The government spends 41% more of its tax revenue on education than other countries. That strength appears to be mitigated by low private sector spending; the country is 12% below the EU average in total public and private sector spending on education.

The result of this spending are test scores at the EU average in nearly every available category. The number of doctoral students is nearly twice the EU average.

Weaknesses. The country has 53% less 25-34 year olds with university education than the EU average. This is the lowest among the comparison countries.

The pupil per teacher ratio in primary school is 17% worse than the European average, and worse than every comparison country except Slovakia.

The country has far fewer patents registered per million inhabitants, and almost 50% fewer scientific papers published per million people than the EU average.

Research and Development expenditure is 16% below EU average. Part of this is low investment of the private sector; part of it is lower than average spending by the government.