GLOBAL EDUCATION DIGEST 2009: StatisticsEducation Comparing the Across World The 2009 Global Education Digest (GED) presents a wide range of education indicators to assess progress towards Education for All and Millennium Development Goals. These cross-nationally comparable indicators also provide benchmarks for the performance of national education systems. The Digest provides data for the school year ending in 2007 or the latest year available, as well as data for 2008 for a small number of countries. It includes data tables from the World Education STATISTICS Indicators (WEI) programme, which are comparable across a group of 62 countries, including those that are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). f o r In addition, time series data on tertiary education from 1970 onwards are presented. The special focus of this edition is the analysis of emerging global trends in tertiary education, highlighting the rapid growth of tertiary education systems since 1970, changing patterns in tertiary education graduates by field of study, and in particular, the changing landscape of international student mobility. GLOBAL EDUCATION DIGEST 2009 The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) is the statistical office of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and is the UN depository for comparable statistics in Comparing Education Statistics Across the World the fields of education, science and technology, and culture and communications. INSTITUTE UNESCO INSTITUTE UNESCO Institute for Statistics P.O. Box 6128, Succursale Centre-Ville Montreal, Quebec H3C 3J7 Canada To access online resources related to the GED – including the statistical tables, time series data, accompanying metadata and other materials – please consult: www.uis.unesco.org/publications/GED2009. To order the interactive database on CD-Rom, please contact: [email protected]. for STATISTICS UNESCO � ������ ������ GLOBAL EDUCATION DIGEST 2009 Comparing Education Statistics Across the World UNESCO The constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was adopted by 20 countries at the London Conference in November 1945 and entered into effect on 4 November 1946. The Organization currently has 193 Member States and six Associate Members. The main objective of UNESCO is to contribute to peace and security in the world by promoting collaboration among nations through education, science, culture and communication in order to foster universal respect for justice, the rule of law, and human rights and fundamental freedoms that are affirmed for the peoples of the world, without distinction of race, sex, language or religion, by the Charter of the United Nations. To fulfill its mandate, UNESCO performs five principal functions: 1) prospective studies on education, science, culture and communication for tomorrow’s world; 2) the advancement, transfer and sharing of knowledge through research, training and teaching activities; 3) standard-setting actions for the preparation and adoption of internal instruments and statutory recommendations; 4) expertise through technical co-operation to Member States for their development policies and projects; and 5) the exchange of specialised information. UNESCO is headquartered in Paris, France. The UNESCO Institute for Statistics The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) is the statistical office of UNESCO and is the UN depository for global statistics in the fields of education, science and technology, culture and communication. The UIS was established in 1999. It was created to improve UNESCO’s statistical programme and to develop and deliver the timely, accurate and policy-relevant statistics needed in today’s increasingly complex and rapidly changing social, political and economic environments. The UIS is based in Montreal, Canada. Published in 2009 by: UNESCO Institute for Statistics P.O. Box 6128, Succursale Centre-Ville Montreal, Quebec H3C 3J7 Canada Tel: (1 514) 343-6880 Fax: (1 514) 343-5740 Email: [email protected] http://www.uis.unesco.org © UNESCO-UIS 2009 Ref: UIS/SD/09-01 ISBN: 978-92-9189-070-5 Design: Sabine Lebeau / les souris zélées Photo credits: Frontcover / Dominique Roger, Valérie Tibet, [ David Bjorgen ], UNDP Backcover / Antonio Jiménez Alonso, David Mangurian Printing: Imprimerie L’Empreinte The authors are responsible for the choice and the presentation of the facts contained in this book and for the opinions expressed therein which are not necessarily those of UNESCO and do not commit the Organization. The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. To access the electronic version of data tables, see www.uis.unesco.org/publications/GED2009. Foreword The role of tertiary education has been topping policy debates across the globe due to the increased recognition of higher-level skills and competencies as essential to national development – especially in the context of globalisation and the shift towards knowledge economies. From high-quality teachers to reach Education for All goals to engineers and scientists to lead innovation, countries at every level of development have important national policy priorities related to higher education. As such, cross-nationally comparable data are vital to formulating policies, benchmarking progress and learning from experiences in other countries. This edition of the Global Education Digest (GED) explores the changing patterns in higher education, while presenting indicators that span the entire scope of the education sector. It builds on the analyses and indicators developed for earlier editions of the GED which focused on secondary education (2005) and tertiary education (2006). Moreover, the Digest introduces additional time series data on tertiary education to assess progress since 1970. It also expands reporting on upper secondary education graduates to 70 countries, which helps forecast the number of potential entrants into tertiary programmes. The analytical chapter of the Digest examines trends in participation, completion by field of study and financing of tertiary education across the globe. It underscores the unprecedented growth in the number of tertiary students, especially since 2000, reaching almost 153 million students in 2007. For every 100 tertiary students in 2000, there were 150 students in 2007. Much of this growth is due to changes in Asia. In addition, there are now more tertiary students in low- and middle-income countries, while the opposite was true three decades ago. However, the profiles of individual countries still vary. In high-income countries, a much higher share of the population has completed tertiary education, suggesting that large gaps still remain. Some of the key findings focus on new trends in international student mobility, addressing where the current 2.8 million mobile tertiary students pursue their education and the countries from which they come. It also looks at how different scenarios play out for each region of the world. This edition continues to report comparable education statistics for a group of 62 countries, including those that are members of the UNESCO World Education Indicators (WEI) programme and the UOE data collection comprising of UNESCO, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Eurostat. The WEI and UOE data 3 FOREWORD sets offer more detailed information on cross-national comparisons of tertiary education programmes, as well as on the sources and flows of tertiary education funding. The GED is only one part of the Institute’s efforts to advance international education statistics. As part of its other ongoing projects, the Institute has convened a panel of international experts to review the ISCED classification system to ensure that it reflects emerging trends in higher education, thereby providing the basis for improved comparability of indicators across all countries of the world. The UIS is also involved in developing direct measures of literacy skills among adults and continuing national capacity-building projects to encourage the sustainable reporting of education finance data. Moreover, the Institute works closely with Member States to improve data quality at the national and international levels through regional workshops with statisticians and policymakers. These exchanges help to improve the scope and comparability of data through the use of international standards. This report is complemented by an interactive database accessible online at www.uis.unesco.org/publications/GED2009 or on CD-ROM (see Annex E). Additional indicators and time series data can be found in the UIS Data Centre. The database is updated three times a year and provides access to the most timely international education data available. Hendrik van der Pol Director UNESCO Institute for Statistics 4 Contents Foreword 3 Acknowledgements 7 Global trends in tertiary education 9 Section 1: Changing levels of participation in tertiary education 10 Section 2: Secondary education graduates and their impact on tertiary education 17 Section 3: Tertiary-level graduates and fields of education 22 Section 4: Global trends in student mobility 35 Section 5: Financing tertiary education 49 Reader’s guide 56 Statistical tables