OECD Education Rankings

The countries which belong to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) produce two-thirds of the world’s goods and services. The organization publishes annual reports about economic and social factors in the member states. School performance league tables are presented in the OECD report, Education at a Glance 2009. It includes comparison tables of educational performance, class sizes, teachers’ salaries, tertiary education and much more. The report can be downloaded as a PDF document.

Chart A1·2 [ page 29] ranks countries, in descending order, according to the percentage of 25-34 year-olds who have completed an upper secondary education (the most recent data in the 2009 report is from 2007). The United States of America is the only OECD country where 25-34 year-olds are not better educated than 55-64 year-olds. See the rankings for top performers in science (on this page). Chart A1·2 is reproduced here in accordance with the terms specified at: http://www.oecd.org/rights/

 

Chart A1·2 footnotes:

1. Year of reference 2002.
2. Year of reference 2004.

Top performers in science

 

The table on the right shows the science scores for the same countries as Chart A1·2, measured on the science scale of the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Information about the programme can be found at: www.pisa.oecd.org. Education at a Glance 2009 shows the percentage of top performers within each country on the PISA science scale (2006 data).

OECD member countries:

The 30 member countries of the OECD are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and the United States.

In 2007, the OECD Council decided to open accession discussions with Chile, Estonia, Israel, the Russian Federation and Slovenia, and explore possibilities for enhanced co-operation with selected countries, such as Brazil.

Homeschooling is more popular in the USA than in any other country.

UN reports about OECD countries:

The United Nations also publishes reports about OECD member nations. UNICEF publishes reports on the performance of member countriess in meeting the needs of their children. You can download PDF’s of any report in the Innocenti Report Card series from the UNICEF website.
 

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