EDUCATION FOR EVERY ONE

The Top 10 (And Counting) Education Systems In The World

Pearson recently released their global report on education (which we also looked at last year). This report takes a look at major factors in education, such as expenditure per student, GDP, graduation rates, etc. South Korea topped the rankings again this year, but Finland – well known for its excellence in education – fell to 5th place.

Take a gander at the graphic below (from the report summary) to see where each country falls in the rankings. If you want to toy around with the statistics and see what factors are influencing each country in each area, you can take a few minutes to play around with the interactive graphic of cognitive skills and educational attainment.

Some of the key findings of the report are as follows:

• East Asian nations continue to outperform others. South Korea tops the rankings, followed by Japan (2nd), Singapore (3rd) and Hong Kong (4th). All these countries’ education systems prize effort above inherited ‘smartness’, have clear learning outcomes and goalposts, and have a strong culture of accountability and engagement among a broad community of stakeholders.
• Scandinavian countries, traditionally strong performers, are showing signs of losing their edge. Finland, the 2012 Index leader, has fallen to 5th place; and Sweden is down from 21st to 24th.
• Notable improvements include Israel (up 12 places to 17th), Russia (up 7 places to 13th) and Poland (up four places to 10th).
• Developing countries populate the lower half of the Index, with Indonesia again ranking last of the 40 nations covered, preceded by Mexico (39th) and Brazil (38th).

Ranking the World’s Educational Systems

We’ve just listed the first 10 below – scroll through the whole graphic to see all of the countries examined in the report.

1. South Korea
2. Japan
3. Singapore
4. Hong Kong
5. Finland
6. UK
7. Canada
8. Netherlands
9. Ireland
10. Poland