Hungary ranks 33rd in the ranking of the world’s best 100 countries, where Newsweek measured countries according to education, health, quality of life, economic competitiveness and political environment to see where a child would have the best possibilities to lead a healthy, safe and successful life. The weekly noted that the list is based on the countries’ status in 2008-09.

Of the five categories, Hungary fared best in Education (90.2 points out of 100), while it scored the lowest (46.23 points) in Economic dynamism. The only country in the Visegrad Four that ranks lower in the latter category is Slovakia (52nd, 44.82 points).

Finland leads the ranking with an overall score of 89.4 points. Finland’s education score rose to 102 from 100 to account for the country’s perfect scores on each of the education metrics. It scored above 90 in all but one category (Economic dynamism, 70.49), but this was still a high enough score for the 8th place. Finland reached the "worst" position (17th) in the Health category.

The country's success was put down in part to its education system. Asked how many children failed to complete school in her city, a Finnish district official told the magazine: "I can tell you their names if you want."

The Top10 includes seven European countries, plus Australia (4), Canada (7) and Japan (9). The United States came in 11th.

Comparing Hungary to its regional peers we can say the country is in the second third in rankings. Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Poland, Slovakia and Estonia all finished before Hungary."

Source: Portfolio Online Financial Journal