A League Table of Educational Disadvantage in Rich Nations

This new report from the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre considers the effectiveness of public education systems across the rich nations of the industrialised world. The Report Card takes an overview of several well-respected cross-national surveys into educational performance in an effort to present a “big picture” of the extent of educational disadvantage in OECD member countries. Although enrolment rates in lower secondary schooling throughout the OECD are almost 100 per cent, children in their early teens nevertheless differ greatly in what they successfully manage to learn while at school. With the importance of knowledge and of “human capital” in the global economy, the differences between high and low achievers become ever more critical if a part of each generation is not to be excluded from the benefits of economic progress.