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Education at a Glance 2013OECD inDiCatOrs

Education at a Glance2013

OECD inDiCatOrs

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OECD 2013

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Please cite this publication as: OECD (2013), Education at a Glance 2013: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing.

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Education at a Glance 2013: OECD Indicators OECD 2013 3

Foreword

Governments are paying increasing attention to international comparisons as they search for effective policies that enhance individuals social and economic prospects, provide incentives for greater efficiency in schooling, and help to mobilise resources to meet rising demands. As part of its response, the OECD Directorate for Education and Skills devotes a major effort to the development and analysis of the quantitative, internationally comparable indicators that it publishes annually in Education at a Glance. These indicators enable educational policy makers and practitioners alike to see their education systems in light of other countries performance and, together with the OECD country policy reviews, are designed to support and review the efforts that governments are making towards policy reform.

Education at a Glance addresses the needs of a range of users, from governments seeking to learn policy lessons to academics requiring data for further analysis to the general public wanting to monitor how its countrys schools are progressing in producing world-class students. The publication examines the quality of learning outcomes, the policy levers and contextual factors that shape these outcomes, and the broader private and social returns that accrue to investments in education.

Education at a Glance is the product of a long-standing, collaborative effort between OECD governments, the experts and institutions working within the framework of the OECD Indicators of Education Systems (INES) programme and the OECD Secretariat. The publication was prepared by the staff of the Innovation and Measuring Progress Division of the OECD Directorate for Education and Skills, under the responsibility of DirkVanDamme and Corinne Heckmann and in co-operation with EtienneAlbiser, SimoneBloem, RodrigoCastaneda-Valle, EricCharbonnier, Estelle Herbaut, Karinne Logez, KojiMiyamoto, Joris Ranchin, Cuauhtemoc Rebolledo-Gomez, Gara Rojas Gonzlez, DavidValenciano, and Jean Yip. Administrative support was provided by Rhodia Diallo, editing of the report was undertaken by MarilynAchiron, and additional advice as well as analytical and editorial support were provided by GwenaelleBarach, MarikaBoiron, Clia Braga-Schich, Elizabeth Del Bourgo, Caroline Isral, Diane Lalancette and Ignacio Marin. The authoring team benefited from the analytical review of SamAbrams, Francesco Avvisati, Tracey Burns, SoniaGuerriero, Hiroko Ikesako, David Istance, Marco Kools, KatarzynaKubacka, Pauline Musset, Anna Pons, MihoTaguma, Willam Thorn, Juliana Zapata and Pablo Zoido. Production of the report was co-ordinated by ElisabethVilloutreix. The development of the publication was steered by member countries through the INES Working Party and facilitated by the INESNetworks. The members of the various bodies as well as the individual experts who have contributed to this publication and to OECD INES more generally are listed at the end of the book.

While much progress has been accomplished in recent years, member countries and the OECD continue to strive to strengthen the link between policy needs and the best available internationally comparable data. This presents various challenges and trade-offs. First, the indicators need to respond to educational issues that are high on national policy agendas, and where the international comparative perspective can offer important added value to what can be accomplished through national analysis and evaluation. Second, while the indicators should be as comparable as possible, they also need to be as country-specific as is necessary to allow for historical, systemic and cultural differences between countries. Third, the indicators need to be presented in as straightforward a manner as possible, while remaining sufficiently complex to reflect multi-faceted educational realities. Fourth, there is a general desire to keep the indicator set as small as possible, but it needs to be large enough to be useful to policy makers across countries that face different educational challenges.

Foreword

Education at a Glance 2013: OECD Indicators OECD 20134

The OECD will continue to address these challenges vigorously and to pursue not just the development of indicators in areas where it is feasible and promising to develop data, but also to advance in areas where a considerable investment still needs to be made in conceptual work. The further development of the OECDProgramme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and its extension through the OECD Survey of Adult Skills, a product of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), as well as the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), are major efforts to this end.


Table of ContentsNumber of

the indicator in the

2012 edition

Editorial ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 13

Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 17

Readers Guide .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 21

Chapter a the output of eduCational institutions and the impaCt of learning .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 25

Indicator A1 To what level have adults studied? ................................................................................................................................... 26

Table A1.1a Educational attainment of 25-64 year-olds (2011) ........................................................................................35

Table A1.2a Percentage of the population that has attained at least upper secondary education, by age group (2011) ...................................................................................................................................................36

Table A1.3a Percentage of the population that has attained tertiary education, by type of programme and age group (2011) ..........................................................................................................37

Table A1.4a Trends in educational attainment, by age group, and average annual growth rate (2000-11)..............................................................................................................................................................................38

Table A1.5a Educational attainment of 25-64 year-olds, by programme orientation and gender (2011)..........................................................................................................................................................................................40

Indicator A2 How many students are expected to complete upper secondary education? ....... 42

Table A2.1a Upper secondary graduation rates and average ages (2011) .............................................................50

Table A2.1b Upper secondary graduation rates for students under 25 (2011) ..................................................51

Table A2.2a Trends in first-time graduation rates at upper secondary level (1995-2011) .................52

Table A2.3a Distribution of upper secondary vocational graduates, by field of education and gender (2011)..........................................................................................................................................................................................53

Indicator A3 How many students are expected to complete tertiary education? .............................. 54

Table A3.1a Tertiary graduation rates and average ages (2011) .........................................................................................61

Table A3.1b Tertiary graduation rates among students under the typical age at graduation (2011) ..................................................................................................................................................................................62

Table A3.2a Trends in tertiary graduation rates (1995-2011) ..............................................................................................63

Indicator A4 How many students complete tertiary education? ................................................................................. 64

Table A4.1 Completion rates in tertiary education (2011) .....................................................................................................71

Table A4.2 Completion rates in tertiary-type A education, by status of enrolment (2011) ...................................................................................................................................................................................72

Indicator A5 How does educational attainment affect participation in the labour market? ......................................................................................................................................................................... 74

Table A5.1a Employment rates among 25-64 year-olds, by educational attainment (2011) .........................................................................................................................................................................................86

A1

A2

A3

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in the 2012 edition

Table A5.1b Employment rates among 25-64 year-olds, by educational attainment and gender (2011)..........................................................................................................................................................................................87

Table A5.2a Unemployment rates among 25-64 year olds, by educational attainment (2011) .........................................................................................................................................................................................89

Table A5.2b Unemployment rates among 25-64 year-olds, by educational attainment and gender (2011)..........................................................................................................................................................................................90

Table A5.3a Employment rates, by educational attainment and age group (2000, 2005, 2008 and 2011) ........................................................................................................................................................92

Table A5.4a Unemployment rates, by educational attainment and age group (2000, 2005, 2008 and 2011) ........................................................................................................................................................94

Table A5.5a Labour market status among 25-64 year-olds, by educational attainment and programme orientation (2011) ......................................................................................................................................96

Table A5.6 Proportion of full-time, full-year earners among all earners, by educational attainment and age group (2011) ............................................................................................................................................97

Indicator A6 What are the earnings premiums from education? ............................................................................100

Table A6.1 Relative earnings of adults with income from employment, by educational attainment, gender and age group (2011) ..................................................................................................................111

Table A6.2a Trends in relative earnings of 25-64 year-olds with income from employment, by educational attainment (2000-11) ............................................................................................................................113

Table A6.2b Trends in relative earnings of 25-64 year-old men with income from employment, by educational attainment (2000-11) ............................................................................................................................115

Table A6.2c Trends in relative earnings of 25-64 year-old women with income from employment, by educational attainment (2000-11) ................................................................117

Table A6.3a Differences in earnings between women and men, by educational attainment and age group (2011) .............................................................................................................................................................................119

Table A6.3b Trends in the differences in earnings between 25-64 year-old women and men, by educational attainment (2000-11) ............................................................................................................................120

Table A6.5a Relative earnings of 15-24 year-old students, by educational attainment and gender (2011)......................................................................................................................................................................................122

Table A6.5b Share of young adults with income from employment among all young adults, by gender, age group and student status (2011) ............................................................................................124

Indicator A7 What are the incentives to invest in education? .....................................................................................126

Table A7.1a Private costs and benefits for a man attaining upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary education (2009) ..................................................................................................................................................140

Table A7.1b Private costs and benefits for a woman attaining upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary education (2009) .......................................................................................141

Table A7.2a Public costs and benefits for a man attaining upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary education (2009) ...................................................................................................................................................142

Table A7.2b Public costs and benefits for a woman attaining upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary education (2009) .........................................................................................143

Table A7.3a Private costs and benefits for a man attaining tertiary education (2009) .................144

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in the 2012 edition

Table A7.3b Private costs and benefits for a woman attaining tertiary education (2009) ........145

Table A7.4a Public costs and benefits for a man attaining tertiary education (2009) ....................146

Table A7.4b Public costs and benefits for a woman attaining tertiary education (2009) ...........147

Indicator A8 What are the social outcomes of education? .................................................................................................148

Table A8.1 Proportion of obese adults, by level of educational attainment and gender (2011)......................................................................................................................................................................................154

Table A8.2 Proportion of adults who smoke, by level of educational attainment and gender (2011)......................................................................................................................................................................................155

Table A8.3 Percentage-point differences in the likelihood of being obese associated with an increase in the level of educational attainment (2011) ...............................................156

Table A8.4 Percentage-point differences in the likelihood of smoking associated with an increase in the level of educational attainment (2011) ...............................................157

Chapter B finanCial and human resourCes invested in eduCation ..............159Indicator B1 How much is spent per student? .....................................................................................................................................162Table B1.1a Annual expenditure per student by educational institutions for all services (2010) ............................................................................................................................................................................174Table B1.2 Annual expenditure per student by educational institutions for core services, ancillary services and R&D (2010) .....................................................................................................................................175Table B1.3a Cumulative expenditure per student by educational institutions for all services over the average duration of tertiary studies (2010) ...............................................................................176Table B1.4 Annual expenditure per student by educational institutions for all services, relative to GDP per capita (2010) ........................................................................................................................................177Table B1.5a Change in expenditure per student by educational institutions for all services, relative to different factors, at the primary, secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary levels of education (1995, 2000, 2005, 2010)............................................................178

Table B1.5b Change in expenditure per student by educational institutions for all services, relative to different factors, at the tertiary level of education (1995, 2000, 2005, 2010) ...............................................................................................................................................................179

Table B1.6 Annual expenditure per student by educational institutions for all services, by type of programme, at the secondary level (2010) .............................................................................180

Indicator B2 What proportion of national wealth is spent on education? ...............................................182

Table B2.1 Expenditure on educational institutions as a percentage of GDP, by level of education (1995, 2000, 2005, 2010) ..............................................................................................191

Table B2.2 Expenditure on educational institutions as a percentage of GDP, by level of education (2010) ........................................................................................................................................................192

Table B2.3 Expenditure on educational institutions as a percentage of GDP, by source of fund and level of education (2010) .............................................................................................193

Table B2.4 Expenditure on educational institutions, by service category, as a percentage of GDP (2010) .................................................................................................................................................194

Table B2.5 Change in public expenditure on educational institutions as a percentage of GDP (2008, 2009, 2010) ...........................................................................................................................................................195

B1

A11

B2

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in the 2012 edition

Indicator B3 How much public and private investment in education is there? ................................196

Table B3.1 Relative proportions of public and private expenditure on educational institutions for all levels of education (2000, 2010) .................................................................................205

Table B3.2a Relative proportions of public and private expenditure on educational institutions, by level of education (2000, 2010) .............................................................................................206

Table B3.2b Relative proportions of public and private expenditure on educational institutions, for tertiary education (2000, 2010) .........................................................................................207

Table B3.3 Trends in relative proportions of public expenditure on educational institutions and index of change between 1995 and 2010, for tertiary education..............................208

Table B3.4 Annual public expenditure on educational institutions per student, by type of institution (2010) ......................................................................................................................................................209

Indicator B4 What is the total public spending on education? ...................................................................................210

Table B4.1 Total public expenditure on education (2010) ..................................................................................................218

Table B4.2 Total public expenditure on education (1995, 2000, 2005 and 2010).............................219

Table B4.3 Sources of public educational funds, for primary, secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary education, by level of government (2010) ......................................................................220

Indicator B5 How much do tertiary students pay and what public support do they receive? ..........................................................................................................................................................................................222

Table B5.1 Estimated annual average tuition fees charged by tertiary-type A educational institution for national students (2011) ...................................................................................................................232

Table B5.2 Distribution of financial aid to students compared to amount of tuition fees charged in tertiary-type A education, national students and first degree programmes (2011) .................................................................................................................................................................................234

Table B5.3 Average tuition fees charged by institutions, by field of education (2011) ..............235

Table B5.4 Public support for households and other private entities as a percentage of total public expenditure on education and GDP, for tertiary education (2010) ...............236

Indicator B6 On what resources and services is education funding spent? ............................................238

Indicator B7 Which factors influence the level of expenditure on education? ..................................240

Table B7.1 Salary cost of teachers per student, by level of education (2011) ..........................................250

Table B7.2a Factors used to compute the salary cost of teachers per student, in primary education (2000, 2005 and 2011) ....................................................................................................251

Table B7.2b Factors used to compute the salary cost of teachers per student, in lower secondary education (2000, 2005, 2011) ......................................................................................253

Table B7.3 Contribution of various factors to salary cost of teachers per student, in primary education (2000, 2005 and 2011) ....................................................................................................255

Table B7.4a Contribution of various factors to salary cost of teachers per student, in lower secondary education (2000, 2005 and 2011) ...........................................................................256

Table B7.5a Contribution of various factors to salary cost of teachers per student, in upper secondary education (2011) ............................................................................................................................257

B4

B3

B5

B6

B7

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in the 2012 edition

Chapter C aCCess to eduCation, partiCipation and progression .......................259

Indicator C1 Who participates in education? ........................................................................................................................................260

Table C1.1a Enrolment rates, by age (2011) ...............................................................................................................................................269

Table C1.2 Trends in enrolment rates (1995-2011) .....................................................................................................................270

Table C1.3 Upper secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary enrolment patterns (2011) ......271

Table C1.4 Students in primary and secondary education, by percent share in type of institution or mode of enrolment (2010) .........................................................................................................272

Table C1.5 Students in tertiary education, by percent share in type of institution or mode of enrolment (2011) ....................................................................................................................................................273

Table C1.6a Expected years in education from age 5 through age 39 (2011) ..............................................274

Indicator C2 How do early childhood education systems differ around the world? ..................276

Table C2.1 Enrolment rates in early childhood and primary education, by age (2005, 2011) ......................................................................................................................................................................................................286

Table C2.2 Characteristics of early childhood education programmes (2010, 2011) ...................287

Table C2.3 Characteristics of education-only and integrated early childhood education programmes (2011) .................................................................................................................................................................................288

Indicator C3 How many students are expected to enter tertiary education? ......................................290Table C3.1a Entry rates into tertiary education and average age of new entrants (2011) ...................299

Table C3.1b Entry rates into tertiary education of students under the typical age of entry (2011) ...................................................................................................................................................................................300

Table C3.2a Trends in entry rates at the tertiary level (1995-2011) .......................................................................301

Table C3.3a Distribution of tertiary new entrants, by field of education (2011) ..................................302

Indicator C4 Who studies abroad and where? .......................................................................................................................................304Table C4.1 International student mobility and foreign students in tertiary education (2005, 2011) .......................................................................................................................................................................................................317

Table C4.2 Distribution of international and foreign students enrolled in tertiary programmes, by field of education (2011) ..............................................................................................................318

Table C4.3 Distribution of international and foreign students in tertiary education, by country of origin (2011) .............................................................................................................................................................319

Table C4.4 Citizens studying abroad in tertiary education, by country of destination (2011) .....321

Table C4.5 Mobility patterns of foreign and international students (2011).............................................323

Table C4.6 Trends in the number of foreign students enrolled in tertiary education, by region of destination and origin (2000 to 2011) ..................................................................................324

Indicator C5 Transition from school to work: Where are the 15-29 year-olds? ...............................326Table C5.1a Expected years in education and not in education for 15-29 year-olds, by work status (2011) ............................................................................................................................................................................337

Table C5.2a Percentage of 15-29 year-olds in education and not in education, by work status, including duration of unemployment (2011) .....................................................................................................338

Table C5.3a Percentage of 15-29 year-olds in education and not in education, by work status, including part-time workers (2011) ................................................................................339

C2

C3

C1

C5

C4

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in the 2012 edition

Table C5.4a Trends in the percentage of young people in education and not in education, employed or not, by 5-year age group (1997-2011)...................................................................................340Table C5.5a Percentage of 15-29 year-olds in education and not in education, by educational attainment and work status, including duration of unemployment (2011) ...........343Table C5.6 Percentage of 15-29 year-olds in education and not in education, by educational attainment and work status, including part-time (PT) workers (2011) ........................346Table C5.7 Trends in the percentage of 15-29 year-old part-time (PT) and full-time (FT) workers in education and not in education (2006-11)...........................................................................349

Chapter d the learning environment and organisation of sChools .........351Indicator D1 How much time do students spend in the classroom? ...................................................................352

Table D1.1 Compulsory and intended instruction time in public institutions (2011) ................360

Table D1.2a Instruction time per subject in primary education (2011) ..............................................................361

Table D1.2b Instruction time per subject in lower secondary education (2011) .....................................362

Indicator D2 What is the student-teacher ratio and how big are classes? .................................................364

Table D2.1 Average class size, by type of institution and level of education (2011) ......................374

Table D2.2 Ratio of students to teaching staff in educational institutions (2011) ..........................375

Table D2.3 Ratio of students to teaching staff by type of institution (2011) ..........................................376

Indicator D3 How much are teachers paid? ...............................................................................................................................................378

Table D3.1 Teachers statutory salaries at different points in their careers (2011) .........................388

Table D3.2 Comparison of teachers salaries (2011) ....................................................................................................................390

Table D3.3 Average actual teachers salaries (2011) .....................................................................................................................391

Table D3.4 Trends in teachers salaries between 2000 and 2011 ..............................................................................392

Indicator D4 How much time do teachers spend teaching? .............................................................................................394

Table D4.1 Organisation of teachers working time (2011) ...............................................................................................401

Table D4.2 Number of teaching hours per year (2000 and 2005-11)...................................................................402

Indicator D5 Who are the teachers?......................................................................................................................................................................404

annex 1 CharaCteristiCs of eduCation systems ................................................................................407Table X1.1a Upper secondary graduation rate: Typical graduation ages and method used to calculate graduation rates (2011) ................................................................................................................408

Table X1.1b Post-secondary non-tertiary graduation rates: Typical graduation ages and method used to calculate graduation rates (2011) .........................................................................410

Table X1.1c Tertiary graduation rate: Typical graduation ages and method used to calculate graduation rates (2011) ................................................................................................................................411

Table X1.1d Tertiary entry rate: Typical age of entry and method used to calculate entry rates (2011) ......................................................................................................................................................................................413

Table X1.2a School year and financial year used for the calculation of indicators, OECD countries ............................................................................................................................................................................................414

Table X1.2b School year and financial year used for the calculation of indicators, other G20 countries ................................................................................................................................................................................415

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in the 2012 edition

annex 2 referenCe statistiCs ..........................................................................................................................................................417Table X2.1 Overview of the economic context using basic variables (reference period: calendar year 2010, 2010 current prices) ........................................................418

Table X2.2a Basic reference statistics (reference period: calendar year 2010, 2010 current prices) ...............................................................................................................................................................................419

Table X2.2b Basic reference statistics (reference period: calendar year 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010) .........................................................................................................................................................................................................420

Table X2.3a Teachers statutory salaries at different points in their careers (2011) .........................421

Table X2.3b Trends in teachers salaries, between 2000 and 2011.............................................................................423

Table X2.3c Reference statistics used in calculating teachers salaries (2000, 2005-11) .............425

annex 3 sourCes, methods and teChniCal notes ..............................................................................427

Contributors to this publication ........................................................................................................................................................................................429

Related OECD publications .........................................................................................................................................................................................................435

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EditorialLearning their way out:

Youth, education and skills in the midst of the crisis

This edition of Education at a Glance comes at a time when youth unemployment keeps policy makers awake at night. Between 2008 and 2011 the years to which most data in this volume refer unemployment rates climbed steeply in most countries and have remained high ever since. Young people have been particularly hard-hit by un- and underemployment as a result of the global recession. In 2011, the average proportion of 15-29 year-olds neither in employment nor in education or training (NEET) across OECD countries was16%; among 25-29 year-olds, 20% were NEET. (Among this latter group, 40% were unemployed, more than half of them for more than six months; the rest did not participate in the labour market at all.) In some countries the figures are much higher, with more than one in three people between the ages of 25 and 29 neither in education nor in work. These young people are forced to pay a very high price for a crisis that was not of their making, with long-lasting consequences for their skills, work morale and social integration. The demoralising short-term effects for individuals, families and communities demand urgent policy responses, while the longer-term ramifications, in terms of skills loss, scarring effects and de-motivation, are real and affect countries potential for sustainable recovery.

The distribution of unemployment within the younger generation sheds light on some of the factors that may increase the risk of joblessness, which, in turn, offers insights for policy responses. Most notably, educational attainment has a huge impact on employability, and the crisis has strengthened this impact even further. On average across OECD countries, 4.8% of individuals with a tertiary degree were unemployed in 2011, while 12.6% of those lacking a secondary education were. Between 2008 and 2011 the unemployment gap between those with low levels of education and those with high levels of education widened: across all age groups, the unemployment rate for low-educated individuals increased by almost 3.8 percentage points, while it increased by only 1.5 percentage points for highly educated individuals. Without the foundation skills provided by a minimum level of education, people find themselves particularly vulnerable in an insecure labour market.

The crisis has also produced ample evidence that a good education provides valuable insurance against a lack of work experience: the impact of educational attainment on unemployment is much greater for younger people than it is for older adults. Across OECD countries, an average of 18.1% of 25-34 year-olds without secondary education were unemployed in 2011, compared with 8.8% of 55-64 year-olds. Among 25-34 year-olds with a tertiary qualification, an average of 6.8% were unemployed, compared with 4.0% of 55-64 year-olds with a similar level of education.

Nevertheless, that fact that these troubling trends are far from universal indicates that they are not inevitable. There are large differences between countries in the way the recession has shaped the social reality for young people. The steep increases in youth unemployment between 2008 and 2011, especially among low-educated young people, in countries such as Estonia (a 17.6 percentage-point increase in unemployment among 25-34 year-olds without a secondary education), Greece (15.0 percentage-point increase), Ireland (21.5 percentage-point increase) and Spain (16.0 percentage-point increase) are well-known. Less known is that, during the same period, some countries saw drops in unemployment among low-skilled youth, including Austria (-3.3percentage points), Chile (-3.6 percentage points), Germany (-2.1 percentage points), Israel (-0.9 percentage point), Korea (-1.6 percentage points), Luxembourg (-1.0 percentage point) and Turkey (-1.7percentage points). Several other countries were able to contain the increases within more or less tolerable levels.

Editorial


Though many factors play a role in a countrys capacity to contain the rise in youth unemployment in times of crisis, the way institutional arrangements between education and work facilitate transitions into employment is perhaps one of the most important. This years Education at a Glance provides more detailed data on programme orientation (general versus vocational) in secondary and tertiary education. Countries with relatively high numbers of 25-34 year-old graduates from vocationally oriented programmes succeeded in reducing the risk of unemployment among young people with upper secondary education as their highest level of attainment. Countries that have a higher-than-average (32%) proportion of graduates from vocational programmes, such as Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany and Luxembourg, were all able to keep the increases in unemployment rates among this age group to below 8 percentage points. Conversely, countries such as Greece, Ireland and Spain, where less than 25% of young adults graduate from vocational upper secondary education, saw increases in unemployment rates of 12 percentage points or more among 25-34 year-olds with only secondary education. For young people who do not continue into tertiary education, vocational education clearly offers better prospects for their employability than general, more academically oriented upper secondary education.

Vocational education and training (VET) systems thus play a critical role in strengthening countries capacity to deal with rapidly changing labour-market conditions. Several OECD countries have developed policies to improve and expand VET programmes at the upper secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary levels in order to equip young people with the skills the labour market demands. These programmes often include intensive workplace training and are based on extensive partnerships between schools and enterprises. Between 2005 and 2011, the number of students graduating from upper secondary vocational programmes increased by an average of 4.3 percentage points across OECD countries. In several countries, notably Austria, Belgium, Finland, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, this increase exceeded 10 percentage points.

We can further improve our understanding of how qualifications are related to labour-market outcomes by delving into the actual content of qualifications, rather than simply classifying them by level. This years edition explores some data on graduates field of study. While data from only a limited number of countries are examined, these data show a wide variation in unemployment rates among tertiary graduates in different fields of study. Interestingly, this variation does not fully reflect the segmentation in labour demand and wages found more broadly in the economy and in the labour market. For example, in the UnitedStates, the unemployment rate for graduates from the high-paying field of computer and information systems(5.3%) was higher than the unemployment rate for graduates of relatively low-paying secondary teaching programmes(2.4%), which had one of the lowest unemployment figures of any programme. The relationship between students career choices, skill development in a particular field of study, and actual employability is more complex than often assumed.

Educational attainment not only affects employability, as Education at a Glance shows, but also has an impact onincome from employment. On average, the relative earnings of tertiary-educated adults is over 1.5 times thatof adults with upper secondary education, while individuals without an upper secondary education earn 25% less, on average, than their peers who have attained that level of education. The crisis has widened this wage gap: the average difference between earnings from employment between low-educated and highly educated individuals was 75 percentage points across OECD countries in 2008, increasing to 90percentagepoints in2011.

Individuals lacking the foundation skills provided by a complete secondary education cannot expect their incomes to rise substantially as they grow older. Indeed, the wage gap between those with low and high levels of education tends to increase with age. Without a secondary education, 25-34 year-olds earn 80% of what their colleagues with a secondary education earn, on average, but 55-64 year-olds earn only 72% of what their more-educated peers earn. The wage premium for higher education increases with age. A 25-34 year-old with a tertiary education earns 40% more, on average, than an adult of the same age who has only a secondary education, while a 55-64 year-old earns 73% more. Educational attainment besides a successful start in employment thus has long-lasting and mutually reinforcing effects over a lifetime. A higher education degree clearly pays off in the long run.

Editorial


Given the close relationship between education, employment and earnings, young people develop strategies to improve their life chances by investing in education. In recent years, they literally learned their way out of the crisis. When opportunity costs declined and it seemed better to postpone entry into an insecure labour market, many young adults opted to equip themselves with more competitive skills before trying to enter the world of work. In most countries, increased demand for post-compulsory education more than compensated for the demographic decline in these age groups. In 2011, the OECD average for 15-19 year-olds enrolled in education was 85%; and the proportion of 20-29 year-olds in education climbed from 22% in 2000 to 29% in 2011. As a consequence, the proportion of adults with tertiary-level qualifications rose by more than 10 percentage points between 2000 and 2011, while the share of adults without a secondary education qualification dropped by the same rate. Across OECD countries, 39% of 25-34 year-olds had a tertiary qualification in 2011.

The changes in enrolment rates, employment rates and investment in education observed in the first years of the recession indicate how education and skills determine the way individuals, families and societies as a whole fared during the most challenging economic and social crisis in recent history. Highly educated young people from fields of study in high demand found a job easily, ending up in a high skills high wage equilibrium, and could envisage a prosperous life ahead of them. For others, a tertiary qualification did not bring the expected rewards, either because the labour market was contracting too much often protecting older generations at the expense of the youngest generation of workers or because their chosen field of study was already saturated or not aligned with the needs of the labour market. Over-schooling and under-employment then resulted in frustration. Young adults with an upper secondary qualification were able to survive the jobs crisis if they were the beneficiaries of programmes that prepared them well for work. Those who hadnt attained a complete secondary education, and so lacked the foundation skills needed to survive in a complex economy, often found themselves at the wrong end of the skills-based polarisation, stuck in a low skills low wage equilibrium or in long-term unemployment with very little prospects for improvement.

High youth unemployment is not inevitable, even during an economic crisis; it is the product of the interaction between the economic context and particular policies. And, as the data collected during the early years of this crisis show, the amount of public spending on education has little to do with a countrys success or failure in containing youth unemployment: nearly all governments maintained more or less their level of investment in education throughout the crisis. What matters more are the choices countries make in how to allocate that spending and the policies they design to improve the efficiency and relevance of the education they provide. Data and policy experiences in countries show which kinds of policies are effective in boosting young peoples employability: ensuring that all young people achieve both a good level of foundation skills and soft skills, such as teamwork, communication and negotiation, that will give them the resilience they need to succeed in an ever-changing labour market; reducing school dropout rates and making sure that as many young people as possible complete at least an upper secondary education (ifnecessary, through second-chance education opportunities); making secondary education relevant to the skill needs of the labour market; developing vocational education and training, and bridging education to the world of work by including work-based learning; securing flexible pathways into tertiary education; and providing good study and career guidance services so that young people can make sound, informed career decisions. These are exactly the policies that the OECD Youth Action Plan, adopted at the OECD Ministerial Meeting in May 2013, is advocating to improve the prospects for young people and for societies as a whole.

Angel GurraOECD Secretary-General


Introduction:the Indicators and their Framework

The organising frameworkEducation at a Glance 2013: OECD Indicators offers a rich, comparable and up-to-date array of indicators that reflects a consensus among professionals on how to measure the current state of education internationally. The indicators provide information on the human and financial resources invested in education, how education and learning systems operate and evolve, and the returns to educational investments. The indicators are organised thematically, and each is accompanied by information on the policy context and the interpretation of the data. The education indicators are presented within an organising framework that:

distinguishes between the actors in education systems: individual learners and teachers, instructional settings and learning environments, educational service providers, and the education system as a whole;

groups the indicators according to whether they address learning outcomes for individuals or countries, policy levers or circumstances that shape these outcomes, or to antecedents or constraints that set policy choices into context; and

identifies the policy issues to which the indicators relate, with three major categories distinguishing between the quality of educational outcomes and educational provision, issues of equity in educational outcomes and educational opportunities, and the adequacy and effectiveness of resource management.

The following matrix describes the first two dimensions:

1. Education and learning outputs and outcomes

2. Policy levers and contexts shaping educational outcomes

3. Antecedents or constraints that contextualise policy

I. Individual participants in education and learning

1.I. The quality and distribution of individual educational outcomes

2.I. Individual attitudes, engagement, and behaviour to teaching and learning

3.I. Background characteristics of the individual learners and teachers

II. Instructional settings

1.II. The quality of instructional delivery

2.II. Pedagogy, learning practices and classroom climate

3.II. Student learning conditions and teacher working conditions

III. Providers of educational services

1.III. The output of educational institutions and institutional performance

2.III. School environment and organisation

3.III. Characteristics of the service providers and their communities

IV. The education system as a whole

1.IV. The overall performance of the education system

2.IV. System-wide institutional settings, resource allocations, and policies

3.IV. The national educational, social, economic, and demographic contexts

Introduction


The following sections discuss the matrix dimensions in more detail:

Actors in education systemsThe OECD Indicators of Education Systems (INES) programme seeks to gauge the performance of national education systems as a whole, rather than to compare individual institutional or other sub-national entities. However, there is increasing recognition that many important features of the development, functioning and impact of education systems can only be assessed through an understanding of learning outcomes and their relationships to inputs and processes at the level of individuals and institutions. To account for this, the indicator framework distinguishes between a macro level, two meso-levels and a micro-level of education systems. These relate to:

the education system as a whole;

the educational institutions and providers of educational services;

the instructional setting and the learning environment within the institutions; and

the individual participants in education and learning.

To some extent, these levels correspond to the entities from which data are being collected, but their importance mainly centres on the fact that many features of the education system play out quite differently at different levels of the system, which needs to be taken into account when interpreting the indicators. For example, at the level of students within a classroom, the relationship between student achievement and class size may be negative, if students in small classes benefit from improved contact with teachers. At the class or school level, however, students are often intentionally grouped such that weaker or disadvantaged students are placed in smaller classes so that they receive more individual attention. At the school level, therefore, the observed relationship between class size and student achievement is often positive (suggesting that students in larger classes perform better than students in smaller classes). At higher aggregated levels of education systems, the relationship between student achievement and class size is further confounded, e.g. by the socio-economic intake of schools or by factors relating to the learning culture in different countries. Therefore, past analyses that have relied on macro-level data alone have sometimes led to misleading conclusions.

Outcomes, policy levers and antecedentsThe second dimension in the organising framework further groups the indicators at each of the above levels:

indicators on observed outputs of education systems, as well as indicators related to the impact of knowledge and skills for individuals, societies and economies, are grouped under the sub-heading output and outcomes of education and learning;

the sub-heading policy levers and contexts groups activities seeking information on the policy levers or circumstances which shape the outputs and outcomes at each level; and

these policy levers and contexts typically have antecedents factors that define or constrain policy. These are represented by the sub-heading antecedents and constraints. It should be noted that the antecedents or constraints are usually specific for a given level of the education system and that antecedents at a lower level of the system may well be policy levers at a higher level. For teachers and students in a school, for example, teacher qualifications are a given constraint while, at the level of the education system, professional development of teachers is a key policy lever.

Policy issuesEach of the resulting cells in the framework can then be used to address a variety of issues from different policy perspectives. For the purpose of this framework, policy perspectives are grouped into three classes that constitute the third dimension in the organising framework for INES:

quality of educational outcomes and educational provision;

equality of educational outcomes and equity in educational opportunities; and

adequacy, effectiveness and efficiency of resource management.

Introduction


In addition to the dimensions mentioned above, the time perspective as an additional dimension in the framework allows dynamic aspects in the development of education systems to be modelled as well.

The indicators that are published in Education at a Glance 2013 fit within this framework, though often they speak to more than one cell.

Most of the indicators in Chapter A, The output of educational institutions and the impact of learning, relate to the first column of the matrix describing outputs and outcomes of education. Even so, indicators in ChapterA measuring educational attainment for different generations, for instance, not only provide a measure of the output of the education system, but also provide context for current educational policies, helping to shape polices on, for example, lifelong learning.

Chapter B, Financial and human resources invested in education, provides indicators that are either policy levers or antecedents to policy, or sometimes both. For example, expenditure per student is a key policy measure that most directly affects the individual learner, as it acts as a constraint on the learning environment in schools and learning conditions in the classroom.

Chapter C, Access to education, participation and progression, provides indicators that are a mixture of outcome indicators, policy levers and context indicators. Internationalisation of education and progression rates are, for instance, outcomes measures to the extent that they indicate the results of policies and practices at the classroom, school and system levels. But they can also provide contexts for establishing policy by identifying areas where policy intervention is necessary to, for instance, address issues of inequity.

Chapter D, The learning environment and organisation of schools, provides indicators on instruction time, teachers working time and teachers salaries that not only represent policy levers which can be manipulated but also provide contexts for the quality of instruction in instructional settings and for the outcomes of individual learners. It also presents data on the profile of teachers, the levels of government at which decisions in education systems are taken, and pathways and gateways to gain access to secondary and tertiary education.

The reader should note that this edition of Education at a Glance covers a significant amount of data from non-OECD G20 countries (please refer to the Readers Guide for details).


Readers Guide Coverage of the statistics

Although a lack of data still limits the scope of the indicators in many countries, the coverage extends, in principle, to the entire national education system (within the national territory), regardless of who owns or sponsors the institutions concerned and regardless of how education is delivered. With one exception (described below), all types of students and all age groups are included: children (including students with special needs), adults, nationals, foreigners, and students in open-distance learning, in special education programmes or in educational programmes organised by ministries other than the Ministry of Education, provided that the main aim of the programme is to broaden or deepen an individuals knowledge. However, children below the age of three are only included if they participate in programmes that typically cater to children who are at least three years old. Vocational and technical training in the workplace, with the exception of combined school- and work-based programmes that are explicitly deemed to be part of the education system, is not included in the basic education expenditure and enrolment data.

Educational activities classified as adult or non-regular are covered, provided that the activities involve the same or similar content as regular education studies, or that the programmes of which they are a part lead to qualifications similar to those awarded in regular educational programmes.

Courses for adults that are primarily for general interest, personal enrichment, leisure or recreation are excluded.

Country coverageThis publication features data on education from the 34 OECD member countries, two non-OECD countries that participate in the OECD Indicators of Education Systems programme (INES), namely Brazil and the Russian Federation, and the other G20 countries that do not participate in INES (Argentina, China, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and South Africa). When data for these latter six countries are available, data sources are specified below the tables and charts.

The statistical data for Israel are supplied by and under the responsibility of the relevant Israeli authorities. The use of such data by the OECD is without prejudice to the status of the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and Israeli settlements in the West Bank under the terms of international law.

Calculation of international means For many indicators, an OECD average is presented; for some, an OECD total is shown.

The OECD average is calculated as the unweighted mean of the data values of all OECD countries for which data are available or can be estimated. The OECD average therefore refers to an average of data values at the level of the national systems and can be used to answer the question of how an indicator value for a given country compares with the value for a typical or average country. It does not take into account the absolute size of the education system in each country.

The OECD total is calculated as the weighted mean of the data values of all OECD countries for which data are available or can be estimated. It reflects the value for a given indicator when the OECD area is considered as a whole. This approach is taken for the purpose of comparing, for example, expenditure charts for individual countries with those of the entire OECD area for which valid data are available, with this area considered as a single entity.

Readers Guide


Both the OECD average and the OECD total can be significantly affected by missing data. Given the relatively small number of countries surveyed, no statistical methods are used to compensate for this. In cases where a category is not applicable (code a) in a country, or where the data value is negligible (coden) for the corresponding calculation, the value zero is imputed for the purpose of calculating OECD averages. In cases where both the numerator and the denominator of a ratio are not applicable (codea) for a certain country, this country is not included in the OECD average.

For financial tables using 1995, 2000 and 2005 data, both the OECD average and OECD total are calculated for countries providing 1995, 2000, 2005 and 2009 data. This allows for a comparison of the OECD average and OECD total over time with no distortion due to the exclusion of certain countries in the different years.

For many indicators, an EU21 average is also presented. It is calculated as the unweighted mean of the data values of the 21 countries that are members of both the European Union and the OECD for which data are available or can be estimated. These 21 countries are Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

For some indicators, a G20 average is presented. The G20 average is calculated as the unweighted mean of the data values of all G20 countries for which data are available or can be estimated (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States; the European Union is the 20th member of the G20 but is not included in the calculation). The G20 average is computed if data for either China or India, or both, are available.

Classification of levels of education The classification of the levels of education is based on the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED 1997). ISCED 1997 is an instrument for compiling statistics on education internationally and distinguishes among six levels of education. ISCED 1997 was recently revised, and the new International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED 2011) was formally adopted in November 2011. This new classification will be implemented in the data collection in May 2014.

Term used in this publication ISCED classification (and subcategories)

Pre-primary educationThe first stage of organised instruction designed to introduce very young children to the school atmosphere. Minimum entry age of 3.

ISCED 0

Primary educationDesigned to provide a sound basic education in reading, writing and mathematics and a basic understanding of some other subjects. Entry age: between 5 and 7. Duration: 6 years.

ISCED 1

Lower secondary educationCompletes provision of basic education, usually in a more subject oriented way with more specialist teachers. Entry follows 6 years of primary education; duration is 3 years. In some countries, the end of this level marks the end of compulsory education.

ISCED 2 (subcategories: 2A prepares students for continuing academic education, leading to 3A; 2B has stronger vocational focus, leading to 3B; 2C offers preparation of entering workforce)

Upper secondary educationStronger subject specialisation than at lower secondary level, with teachers usually more qualified. Students typically expected to have completed 9 years of education or lower secondary schooling before entry and are generally 15 or 16 years old.

ISCED 3 ISCED 3 (subcategories: 3A prepares students for university-level education at level 5A; 3B for entry to vocationally oriented tertiary education at level 5B; 3C prepares students for workforce or for post-secondary non-tertiary education at level ISCED 4)

Readers Guide


Post-secondary non-tertiary educationInternationally, this level straddles the boundary between upper secondary and post-secondary education, even though it might be considered upper secondary or post-secondary in a national context. Programme content may not be significantly more advanced than that in upper secondary, but is not as advanced as that in tertiary programmes. Duration usually the equivalent of between 6 months and 2 years of full-time study. Students tend to be older than those enrolled in upper secondary education.

ISCED 4 ISCED 4 (subcategories: 4A may prepare students for entry to tertiary education, both university level and vocationally oriented; 4B typically prepares students to enter the workforce)

Tertiary education ISCED 5 (subcategories: 5A and 5B; see below)

Tertiary-type A educationLargely theory-based programmes designed to provide sufficient qualifications for entry to advanced research programmes and professions with high skill requirements, such as medicine, dentistry or architecture. Duration at least 3 years full-time, though usually 4 or more years. These programmes are not exclusively offered at universities; and not all programmes nationally recognised as university programmes fulfil the criteria to be classified as tertiary-type A. Tertiary-type A programmes include second-degree programmes, such as the American masters degree.

ISCED 5A

Tertiary-type B educationProgrammes are typically shorter than those of tertiary-type A and focus on practical, technical or occupational skills for direct entry into the labour market, although some theoretical foundations may be covered in the respective programmes. They have a minimum duration of two years full-time equivalent at the tertiary level.

ISCED 5B

Advanced research programmesProgrammes that lead directly to the award of an advanced research qualification, e.g. Ph.D. The theoretical duration of these programmes is 3 years, full-time, in most countries (for a cumulative total of at least 7 years full-time equivalent at the tertiary level), although the actual enrolment time is typically longer. Programmes are devoted to advanced study and original research.

ISCED 6

The glossary available at www.oecd.org/edu/eag.htm also describes these levels of education in detail, and Annex 1 shows the typical age of graduates of the main educational programmes, by ISCED level.

Symbols for missing data and abbreviations

These symbols and abbreviations are used in the tables and charts: a Data is not applicable because the category does not apply. c There are too few observations to provide reliable estimates (e.g. in PISA, there are fewer than

30 students or fewer than five schools with valid data). However, these statistics were included in the calculation of cross-country averages.

m Data is not available.n Magnitude is either negligible or zero.r Values are below a certain reliability threshold and should be interpreted with caution (see

Annex 3 for country-specific definitions).w Data has been withdrawn at the request of the country concerned.x Data included in another category or column of the table (e.g. x(2) means that data are included

in column 2 of the table). ~ Average is not comparable with other levels of education.

Readers Guide


Further resources The website www.oecd.org/edu/eag.htm is a rich source of information on the methods used to calculate the indicators, on the interpretation of the indicators in the respective national contexts, and on the data sources involved. The website also provides access to the data underlying the indicators and to a comprehensive glossary for technical terms used in this publication.

All post-production changes to this publication are listed at www.oecd.org/edu/eag.htm.

Education at a Glance uses the OECD StatLinks service. Below each table and chart in Education at a Glance 2013 is a URL that leads to a corresponding Excel workbook containing the underlying data for the indicator. These URLs are stable and will remain unchanged over time. In addition, readers of the Education at a Glance e-book will be able to click directly on these links and the workbook will open in a separate window.

Codes used for territorial entities These codes are used in certain charts. Country or territorial entity names are used in the text. Note that throughout the publication, the Flemish Community of Belgium and the French Community of Belgium may be referred to as Belgium (Fl.) and Belgium (Fr.), respectively.

ARG Argentina LUX Luxembourg AUS Australia MEX Mexico AUT Austria NLD Netherlands BEL Belgium NOR NorwayBFL Belgium (Flemish Community) NZL New ZealandBFR Belgium (French Community) POL PolandBRA Brazil PRT PortugalCAN Canada RUS Russian FederationCHE Switzerland SAU Saudi ArabiaCHL Chile SCO Scotland CHN China SVK Slovak Republic CZE Czech Republic SVN Slovenia DEU Germany SWE SwedenDNK Denmark TUR TurkeyENG England UKM United Kingdom ESP Spain USA United States EST Estonia ZAF South AfricaFIN FinlandFRA FranceGRC Greece HUN Hungary IDN IndonesiaIND IndiaIRL IrelandISL IcelandISR IsraelITA Italy JPN Japan KOR Korea


The Output ofEducational Institutions

and the Impact of Learning

AChapter

Indicator A1 To what level have adults studied? 1 2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888932847982

Indicator A2 How many students are expected to complete upper secondary education? 1 2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888932848191

Indicator A3 How many students are expected to complete tertiary education? 1 2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888932848343

Indicator A4 How many students complete tertiary education? 1 2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888932848476

Indicator A5 How does educational attainment affect participation in the labour market? 1 2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888932848533

Indicator A6 What are the earnings premiums from education? 1 2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888932848856

Indicator A7 What are the incentives to invest in education? 1 2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888932849084

Indicator A8 What are the social outcomes of education? 1 2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888932849255

indiCator A1


TO whAT lEvEl hAvE ADulTS STuDIED?

The rate of tertiary education attainment among adults in OECD countries has increased by almost 10 percentage points since 2000.

In most OECD countries, 25-34 year-olds have the highest rate of tertiary attainment among all adults by an average of 7 percentage points.

Gender gaps in educational attainment are not only narrowing, in some cases, they are reversing.

1 2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888932846215

ContextEducational attainment is frequently used as a measure of human capital and the level of an individuals skills, in other words, a measure of the skills available in the population and the labour force. The level of educational attainment is the percentage of a population that has reached a certain level of education. Higher levels of educational attainment are strongly associated with higher employment rates and are perceived as a gateway to better labour opportunities and earnings premiums. Individuals have strong incentives to pursue more education, and governments have incentives to build on the skills of the population through education, particularly as national economies continue to shift from mass production to knowledge economies.

Over the past decades, almost all OECD countries have seen significant increases in the educational attainment of their populations. Tertiary education has expanded markedly, and in most OECD countries, an upper secondary qualification (ISCED 3) has become the most common education level attained by young people. Some countries have introduced policy initiatives to more closely align the development of particular skills with the needs of the labour market through vocational education and training (VET) programmes. These policies seem to have had a major impact on educational attainment in several OECD countries where upper secondary VET qualifications are the most common qualifications held among adults.

Indicators in this volume show that gender differences persist in educational attainment, employment rates and earnings. In OECD countries, younger women have higher attainment

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25-34 year-olds 25-64 year-olds

Chart A1.1. Population that has attained tertiary education (2011)Percentage, by age group

indiCator A1


rates than younger men in upper secondary and tertiary education. Nonetheless, overall, adult men have higher attainment rates than adult women in upper secondary education. Despite the fact that a larger proportion of women than men now have a tertiary education, womens employment rates and wages are lower than those of tertiary-educated men (see Indicators A5 and A6).

The relationship between education and demand for skills is explored further in labour-market indicators on employment and unemployment (see Indicator A5), earnings (see Indicator A6), incentives to invest in education (see Indicator A7) and transitions from school to work (see Indicator C5).

Other findingsThe proportion of adults with no upper secondary education shrank by about 10 percentage

points over the past decade.

Even if tertiary attainment rates have increased in recent years, less than 35% of both men and women attain tertiary education.

Among 30-34 year-olds, more than 40% of women have a tertiary education surpassing the rate of men with that level of education by about 8 percentage points.

TrendsSince 2000, tertiary attainment rates have been increasing in both OECD and non-OECD G20 countries; upper secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary attainment levels have remained stable; and the proportion of people with below upper secondary education decreased in most OECD countries. Between 2000 and 2011 the proportion of adults with below upper secondary education shrank by almost 10 percentage points while tertiary attainment increased by about the same degree. However, changes in attainment rates vary greatly between age groups. The differences in tertiary attainment rates between 25-34 year-olds and 55-64 year-olds can range from over 50 percentage points in Korea to the inverse (i.e. fewer younger adults than older adults with tertiary attainment) in Israel.

NoteIn this publication, different indicators show the level of education among individuals, groups and countries. Indicator A1 shows the level of attainment, i.e. the percentage of a population that has successfully completed a given level of education. Graduation rates in Indicators A2 and A3 measure the estimated percentage of younger adults who are expected to graduate from a particular level of education during their lifetimes. Completion rates from tertiary programmes in Indicator A4 estimate the proportion of students who enter a programme and complete it successfully within a certain period of time.

chapter A The Output of Educational Institutions and the Impact of Learning

A1


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1. Excluding ISCED 3C short programmes.2. Persons with ISCED 4A attainment in Germany have successfully completed both a general and a vocational programme. In this chart they have been allocated to vocational.3. Countries for which no information about programme orientation is available.4. Figures for Sweden include about 10% of 25-64 year-olds who have attained ISCED 3 or 4 in programmes that cannot be allocated by orientation.Countries are ranked in descending order of the percentage of 25-64 year-olds with upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary attainment (ISCED 3/4) regardless of the orientation of the programmes.Source: OECD. Table A1.5a. See Annex 3 for notes (www.oecd.org/edu/eag.htm).

Upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary (ISCED 3/4) with general orientation

Upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary (ISCED 3/4) with vocational orientation

Upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary (ISCED 3/4) with no distinction by orientation

Chart A1.2. Population whose highest level of attainment is upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary education (2011)1

Percentage of 25-64 year-olds who have attained ISCED level 3 or 4 as the highest level, and programme orientation

AnalysisAttainment levels in OECD countries

Upper secondary attainment and the weight of vocational education and training (VeT)More adults (25-64 year-olds) have attained upper secondary education (including post-secondary non-tertiary education, but excluding upper secondary short programmes, i.e. ISCED levels 3A, 3B, 3C long and 4; see the Readers Guide for definitions of ISCED levels) than have attained any other level of education across OECD countries. More than a third of the population in most OECD countries, and more than half the population in Austria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Poland, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia and Sweden have attained an upper secondary education as the highest level of attainment (Table A1.4a).

Only in Mexico, Portugal and Turkey, less than 20% of the population attained upper secondary education as the highest level of education; and these countries, together with Italy and Spain, are the sole countries in which the proportion of people with below upper secondary education is larger than the proportion of adults with upper secondary education or with tertiary attainment (Table A1.4a).

1 2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/888932846234

Chart A1.2 shows that the difference in upper secondary attainment rates between adults in vocational and general tracks is substantial in many OECD countries. In Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia, at least half the population has attained upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary VET qualifications as the highest level of attainment; however in these countries, people tend to leave education after attaining upper secondary qualifications (Table A1.5a).

A1

To what level have adults studied? InDICATOR A1 chapter A


Box A1.1. Public-private partnership in VET

In some countries, such as Austria, Germany, Luxembourg and Switzerland, public-private partnerships in vocational education and training (VET) are a longstanding tradition and play an important role in preparing students for the labour market. Their importance is reflected in the high levels of upper secondary attainment, graduation and enrolment in these countries (Tables A1.1a, A1.5a and IndicatorsA2 and C1).

Also known as dual or co-operative systems of vocational education and training, these partnerships are characterised by:

their links between work- and school-based learning to prepare apprentices for a successful transition to full

Education at a Glance 2013 - OECD (eng)--FINAL 20 June 2013.pdf · OECD (2013), Education at a...

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