Education at a Glance 2021
OECD Indicators
Education at a Glance is the authoritative source for information on the state of education around the world. It provides data on the structure, finances and performance of education systems across OECD countries and a number of partner economies. More than 100 charts and tables in this publication – as well as links to much more available on the educational database – provide key information on the output of educational institutions; the impact of learning across countries; access, participation and progression in education; the financial resources invested in education; and teachers, the learning environment and the organisation of schools.
The 2021 edition includes a focus on equity, investigating how progress through education and the associated learning and labour market outcomes are impacted by dimensions such as gender, socio-economic status, country of birth and regional location. A specific chapter is dedicated to Target 4.5 of the Sustainable Development Goal 4 on equity in education, providing an assessment of where OECD and partner countries stand in providing equal access to quality education at all levels. Two new indicators on the mechanisms and formulas used to allocate public funding to schools and on teacher attrition rate complement this year's edition.
Executive summary
An upper secondary degree remains the basic level of education expected of young adults to contribute effectively to society. However, one in five adults across the OECD has not attained upper secondary education and in some countries, a significant share of children leave school early. In 2019, at least 10% of school-aged youth were not in school in about a quarter of OECD countries. Among the factors influencing education performance, socio-economic status has a greater impact on the literacy skills of 15-year-olds than gender or country of origin. Socio-economic status also tends to influence the programme orientation students pursue, as students without a tertiary-educated parent, a proxy for socio-economic status, are more likely to enrol in upper secondary vocational programmes than in general programmes. Those without upper secondary education face disadvantages in the labour market. In 2020, the unemployment rate of young adults that had not completed upper secondary education was almost twice as high as those with higher qualifications. While unemployment increased by 1-2 percentage points between 2019 and 2020 due to the COVID-19 crisis, there is no clear pattern across adults with different educational attainment levels. Lifelong learning has emerged more than ever as critical for adults to upskill and reskill in a changing world. Yet, more than half of adults did not participate in adult learning in 2016, and the pandemic further reduced opportunities to do so.