Ireland has come 15th in a list of 76 countries when it comes to maths and science skills.

A study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development measures the economic impact youngsters' skills have on an economy.

Asian countries occupy the top five spots - with Singapore ranked highest, followed by Hong Kong - while the UK is in 20th place and the US is in 28th.

Finland is the highest rated European country at number six, followed by Estonia. Ghana is at the bottom of the table.

The report will provide evidence for next week's World Education Forum of how achieving education targets can deliver economic gains.

Andreas Schleicher, OECD's education director, told BBC "the idea is to give more countries, rich and poor, access to comparing themselves against the world's education leaders, to discover their relative strengths and weaknesses, and to see what the long-term economic gains from improved quality in schooling could be for them."