Education Policy Guide for human capital: An Importance- Performance Analysis in Iran

Health and skills are two pillars of human capital in Global competitiveness Index. This paper aims to examine the situation of human capital in Iran in comparison with the countries of the region in the 1404 Vision as a guide for developing Iran's educational policy. The research use a compensatory multi-criteria decision making methods. Firstly, the importance of each indicator was determined based on the modified Shannon entropy.Then, by TOPSIS method, the countries of the region were prioritized based on their human capital calcluted score, and for each index, the best performance in the world and the region was identified for benchmarking. Finally, based on Iran’s human capital situation in the region, the importance-performance matrix of Iran was drawn. Based to findings, the first policy makers' priority to develop a human capital policy refer to "Critical thinking in teaching". In addition, "Pupil-to-teacher ratio in primary education", "Mean years of schooling" and "School life expectancy" were also identified in the second priority. Also, "Skillset of graduates", "Quality of vocational training", "Extent of staff training" and "Ease of finding skilled employees" were also given the next priority. The results are a guide to training needs assessment for public administrators to better understand the priorities for improving human capital and identifying benchmarks for successful global and regional experiences