Governments are increasingly looking to international comparisons of education opportunities and outcomes as they develop policies to enhance individuals’ social and economic prospects, provide incentives for greater efficiency in schooling, and help to mobilise resources to meet rising demands. The OECD Directorate for Education and Skills contributes to these efforts by developing and analysing the quantitative, internationally comparable indicators that it publishes annually in Education at a Glance. Together with OECD country policy reviews, these indicators can be used to assist governments in building more effective and equitable education systems.

In the past two decades, the share of young adults with advanced qualifications has risen sharply across OECD countries: 48% of 24-34 year-olds had a tertiary degree in 2021, compared to just 27% in 2000. This is due to the growing need for advanced skills in labour markets and has profound implications for our societies and the future of education.

Education at a Glance 2022: OECD Indicators offers a rich, comparable and up-to-date array of indicators that reflect 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 investments in education. They are organised thematically, each accompanied by information on the policy context and interpretation of the data.

Education at a Glance is an authoritative compendium of internationally harmonised indicators on education systems in OECD and partner countries. It covers all levels of education, with the 2022 edition focusing on tertiary education. This executive summary presents selected results from Education at a Glance 2022 without aiming to give a comprehensive overview of its content. Readers interested in a summary of the key findings on tertiary education are referred to the accompanying Spotlight on Tertiary Education (OECD, 2022).

In 2020, 1.5 billion students in 188 countries and economies were locked out of their schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Students everywhere have been faced with schools that were open one day and closed the next, causing massive disruption to their learning (OECD, 2021[1]). As vaccines became widely available over the course of 2021, the situation started to improve gradually and countries lifted many of the measures that were imposed in earlier stages of the pandemic. Nevertheless, important disruptions to the learning process continued to persist throughout the school year 2021/2022 (or 2021). The OECD – in collaboration with UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Bank – has been monitoring the situation across countries and has collected data covering the years 2020, 2021 and the first quarter of 2022.