Education counts: benchmarking progress in 19 WEI countries

Education data from the World Education Indicators programme for 2004

Published by: UNESCO, 2006
Via: Eldis

This report from the World Education Indicators programme presents, compares and interprets education indicators from 63 developing, middle-income and OECD countries for the 2004 school year. It examines educational attainment, finance and participation – including gender participation rates – as well as the characteristics of teachers, salaries and the learning environment.

Key findings include:

• children in WEI countries can expect to spend almost 14 years in school, compared to the OECD average of about 17 years. Argentina is the only WEI country to exceed this benchmark
• WEI countries devote more of their public budgets to education than OECD countries. In particular, the governments of Malaysia and Thailand invest the largest shares, especially at the tertiary level, of any country in either group
• while OECD teachers earn more in absolute terms, WEI countries pay their teachers more in relation to their national income. Primary teachers in mid-career earn on average 183% of GDP per capita in WEI countries, compared to 130% in OECD countries
• according to the WEI mean, a typical 10-year-old student should receive 909 hours of instruction per year. But in Chile, such a student would receive 1,140 hours per year, compared to just 791 hours in the Russian Federation

(http://www.uis.unesco.org/template/publications/wei2006/WEI2006-FINALwc.pdf)