The number and length of school holidays differs significantly across OECD countries, meaning the number of instructional days in primary and secondary education ranges from 162 days a year in France to more than 200 days in Israel and Japan.

Today, around 5 million students study and do research in a country other than their own, attracted by the quality of overseas universities and willing to complement their education portfolio with international experience.

One in ten students at the master’s or equivalent level is an international student in OECD countries, rising to one in four at the doctoral level.

Students who avoid making an effort to understand mathematics concepts may succeed in some school environments; but a lack of deep, critical and creative thinking may seriously penalise these students later in life when confronted with real, complex problems.

Fewer 15-year-olds in East Asian countries reported that they use memorisation than did 15-year-olds in some of the English-speaking countries to whom they are often compared.

The Survey of Adult Skills finds that even adults with the lowest proficiency in literacy possess some basic reading skills, although the level of these skills varies considerably across countries.

The education sector performs well for information and communication technology (ICT) and problem-solving skills, although it still lags behind the professional, scientific and technical activities sector.

The Survey of Adult Skills finds that adults aged 55 to 65 are less proficient in literacy and numeracy than adults aged 25 to 34. But differences in skills proficiency that are related to age vary widely across countries, implying that skills policies can affect the evolution of proficiency over a lifetime.

OECD countries differ significantly in the way spending on tertiary education is shared between public and private sources of funding, and in the financial support they provide to students.

Across OECD countries, 32% of low-performing students reported that they give up easily when confronted with a difficult mathematics problem compared to only 13% of top performers.

Early childhood education and care programmes (ECEC) have become more accessible in recent years, with high enrolment rates in both early childhood educational development and preprimary education.

On average across OECD countries, the 20% of students who are most exposed to pure mathematics tasks (equations) score, on the PISA mathematics test, the equivalent of almost two school years ahead of the 20% of students who are least exposed.

26 Ministers and State Secretaries representing 15 countries and the European Commission gathered in Bergen, Norway, for the first Skills Summit on 29-30 June 2016. The Summit, hosted by Norway, was opened by Prime Minister Erna Solberg and the OECD’s Secretary General, Angel Gurría.

Even when all students, including the most disadvantaged, have easy access to the Internet,a digital divide, based on socio-economic status, still persists in how students use technology.

When we think of technology and education, we usually think of information and communication technologies (ICTs).

Exposure to complex mathematics concepts and tasks is related to higher performance in PISA among all students, including socio-economically disadvantaged students.

Education at a Glance 2016 - Country Notes

Instructional leadership is the set of practices that principals use in relation to the improvement of teaching and learning. It is a strong predictor of how teachers collaborate and engage in a reflective dialogue about their practice.

Students unable to navigate through our complex digital landscape are simply no longer able to participate in our social, economic and cultural life.

More and more adults are earning a tertiary qualification, but not all tertiary degrees have the same value on the labour market. In general, postgraduate degrees such as master’s and doctoral degrees are associated with higher employment rates and earnings than bachelor’s degrees.

The most recent round of the assessment, PISA 2015, focused on 15-year-olds’ science literacy, defined as "the ability to engage with science-related issues, and with the ideas of science, as a reflective citizen".

Results from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) show that, among countries with a comparatively high gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, the amount spent on education is less important than how those resources are used.

Reforms that boost growth by enhancing economic flexibility often meet strong opposition related to concerns that they may imply adverse consequences for categories of workers. This study investigates how making product or labour market regulation more flexible changes workers’ risks of moving out of employment and jobless people’s chances of becoming employed.

Since 2009, Education at a Glance (EAG) has included an indicator on education and social outcomes using data from different surveys.

Malaysia has sustained over four decades of rapid, inclusive growth, reducing its dependence on agriculture and commodity exports to become a more diversified, modern and open economy.

Countries have seen a major increase in the educational attainment level of their populations. In 1965, only 43% of young adults aged 25-34 had attained upper secondary education or higher on average across OECD countries. Fifty years later, upper secondary education had almost doubled with attainment levels reaching 84% in 2015.

Most people see social inequities in education as stubbornly persistent.

The persistence of social inequities in education – the fact that children of wealthy and highly educated parents tend to do better in school than children from less privileged families – is often seen as a difficult-to-reverse feature of education systems.

The Portuguese economy is gradually recovering from a deep recession thanks to a broad structural reform agenda that has led to rising economic growth, falling unemployment and remarkable progress in export performance.

In modern societies, most professionals become knowledge workers. Their professional practice is increasingly fuelled and inspired by various forms of knowledge. A good example is the medical profession, where the continuously growing body of scientific knowledge finds its way into professional practices.

China has the largest education system in the world. With almost 260 million students and over 15 million teachers in about 514 000 schools (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2014), excluding graduate education institutions, China’s education system is not only immense but diverse.

There is little doubt that in OECD countries, the chances for boys and girls to succeed and contribute to society have become more equal over the past century.

On average across OECD countries, almost one in four students – whether boy or girl – expects to work in an occupation that requires further science training beyond compulsory education. This brief highlights the kinds of science careers 15-year-olds anticipate for themselves in the future.

Highly qualified and competent teachers are fundamental for equitable and effective education systems. Teachers today are facing higher and more complex expectations to help students reach their full potential and become valuable members of 21st century society.

Historically across the OECD, the teaching profession has been largely dominated by women. The share of female teachers has been increasing over the past decade – reaching 68% in 2014 for all levels of education combined. The gender disparity decreases gradually with the level of education, from 97% of women in pre-primary education to 43% in tertiary education.

In countries that performed above the OECD average in science, at least 80% of the students are in schools that invite specialists to conduct teacher training or organise in-service workshops for teachers or where teachers cooperate with each other. This is higher, on average, than what is observed among other countries.

The striking cross-national variation in socio-economic disparities in skills gaps among 15-year-olds, and the evolution of these gaps between the ages of 15 and 27, raises the question of what policies and institutional arrangements may explain such variability.

Despite the geographical distances between them, Ibero-American countries share some similarities in their educational attainment rates and private expenditure on educational institutions as a percentage of GDP.

New teachers are more likely to feel prepared in the content of their subject field(s), rather than the pedagogy or classroom practice of their subject field(s).

In most countries with available data, public educational institutions charge different tuition fees for national and foreign students enrolled in the same programme. In Australia, Austria, Canada, New Zealand and the United States, foreign students pay on average about twice or more the tuition fees charged to national students.

What makes some of the largest companies in the world successful? According to consultant Simon Sinek in a very popular TedTalk it is because they start with the ‘why’.

As this month’s PISA in Focus reveals, students spend considerably more time learning in some countries than in others, but this does not necessarily translate into better learning outcomes.

In some countries and economies, such as Beijing-Shanghai-Jiangsu-Guangdong (China), Qatar,Thailand, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates, students spend at least 54 hours per week learning at and outside of school combined, whereas in others, like Finland, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and Uruguay, students spend less than 40 hours studying.

Local governments are the main contributors to the financing of early childhood education, particularly with regards to core goods and services such as staff salaries and school buildings. Households and other private entities bear a greater share of the cost than in other levels of education, particularly for ancillary services such as meals, school health services and transport.

Teachers enter the profession for a variety of reasons. Intrinsic motivations that have to do with the nature of the job and the intangible rewards associated with being an effective teacher play an important role.

The combined effects of policy reforms to attract and/or retain teachers, and financial constraints in the context of the economic downturn in 2008 may explain part of the recent trends in teachers’ salaries: decreases in statutory salaries and smaller salary gaps between levels of education.

For the first time, the 2015 round of PISA collected data on students’ exposure to bullying. These data show that bullying is widespread. On average across OECD countries, around 11% of students reported that they are frequently (at least a few times per month) made fun of, 8% reported that they are frequently the object of nasty rumours in school, and 7% reported that they are frequently left out of things.

International mobility is on the rise, and the growing number of people coming and going across borders leads to increasingly diverse communities. Education has an important role to play in developing the competencies required for our increasingly global world.

Indigenous peoples are the first inhabitants of their lands, but are often poorly served by the education systems in their countries. Why? Is it necessary to wait until issues such as poverty or appropriate legal recognition for Indigenous peoples are resolved?

The challenge that youth are facing, first and foremost, is skills for employability. It is a fundamental issue. What we have realised in education is that going to school has not necessarily translated into quality learning.