How New Zealand education compares around the world

Education at a Glance provides comparable national statistics measuring the state of education worldwide. The report analyses the education systems of 34 OECD member countries, as well as Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Russia, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.  Most of the recent data in the report relates to 2011.

The findings show New Zealand is performing well.

In terms of international education, key findings include:

• New Zealand has the 11th largest market in absolute market share terms (at 1.7 percent), about the same as last year, but much higher than its share in 2000 (0.4 percent)

• In 2011, we ranked fourth in terms of proportion of tertiary-level students who were international (16 percent). In particular, we had the highest proportion of diploma-level students who were international (at 21 percent ), and the fifth highest (with 13 percent ) at degree level

• The level of international doctorate students has continued its significant rise since 2005 (since the introduction of domestic-fees policy). Nearly 40 percent  of doctorate-level students were international in 2011 (the third highest level after UK and Switzerland).

The report shows that New Zealand is:

• investing 7.3 percent of its GDP in education - the seventh highest in the OECD

• ·investing 20 percent of all public expenditure in education, which is the second highest percentage in the OECD

• in the top third of countries for participation in early childhood education - 95 percent of four year olds enrolled in 2011

• in the top 10 of the OECD for the highest proportion of tertiary qualified adults, with 39 percent of 25 to 64 year-olds and 47 percent of 25 to 34 year-olds in New Zealand having a diploma or higher qualification

• increasing significantly the number of 15 to 19 year olds enrolled in study - 81.5 percent in 2011, up from 74 percent in 2008.

The OECD report, Education at a Glance 2013 is available here