Education at a Glance 2025

Executive summary

Education at a Glance is the definitive guide to the state of education around the world. It analyses all levels of education and provides data on topics such as attainment, enrolment, finance and the organisation of education systems. The 2025 edition puts a special focus on tertiary education.

Educational attainment remains high, but unequal opportunities persist

With 48% of young adults holding a tertiary qualification across the OECD countries, educational attainment is higher than ever. However, growth in tertiary attainment has slowed since 2021. Between 2000 and 2021, the average tertiary attainment rate among young adults increased by about 1 percentage point per year across the OECD, while since 2021 the average annual increase has fallen to just 0.3 percentage points.

Unequal opportunities are holding back some learners who would benefit from a tertiary education. In all countries, children from disadvantaged backgrounds are far less likely to reach higher levels of education than those from more advantaged backgrounds. On average across the OECD, only 26% of young adults whose parents did not complete upper secondary education hold a tertiary qualification, compared to 70% of young adults with at least one tertiary-educated parent.

A few countries and economies have made progress in closing the opportunity gap. In Denmark, tertiary attainment among young adults whose parents did not complete upper secondary education has increased by 20 percentage points since 2012, reaching 49%, above the OECD average among young adults of all backgrounds. England and the Flemish Community of Belgium have also seen progress in reducing the tertiary attainment gap.1

Equitable access to education: a key driver of social mobility

Supporting equitable access to tertiary education remains crucial to strengthening social mobility as educational attainment is closely reflected in labour market outcomes. While an upper secondary qualification offers good protection against unemployment in most countries, many high-skilled and well-paid jobs require a tertiary qualification. Adults with a tertiary qualification earn, on average, 54% more than those with only upper secondary education. Even after accounting for the costs of a tertiary education, the average lifetime financial benefit of obtaining a tertiary qualification exceeds USD 300,000 across the OECD. The earnings advantage is especially large for those with a master’s or doctoral qualification, who earn on average 83% more than those with upper secondary attainment.

In order to give everyone an equal opportunity to access those jobs and increase social mobility, it is essential to break the link between socio-economic background and educational achievement. At a time when skills shortages are prevalent across many sectors this would also provide broader labour market benefits by increasing the pool of skilled workers.

Improving completion rates in tertiary education

Providing access to tertiary education is not enough if students do not complete their programmes. Newly collected data from over 30 OECD and partner countries show that only 43% of new entrants to bachelor’s programmes graduate within the expected programme duration; this rises to 59% after an additional year and 70% after three additional years. Completion rates are particularly low among men, with only 63% completing a bachelor’s degree within three years beyond the expected end date, compared to 75% of women.

Low completion rates have multiple causes, including a mismatch between students’ expectations and programme content, inadequate preparation for programme demands, limited academic and social support and financial barriers. Policy interventions to improve completion rates can include strengthening academic preparation and career guidance in secondary education, as well as designing tertiary programmes with clearly defined sequences of courses and support measures that guide students progressively towards graduation. In addition, giving people credentials for specific skills they have learned - even if they do not complete their studies - can help them show employers what they are capable of. This would make partial completion of tertiary programmes more valuable.

Beyond formal credentials: the skills gap challenge

Although attainment and completion rates offer valuable information on education system performance, equipping learners with relevant skills is ultimately more important. Despite rising educational attainment, literacy and numeracy skills of adults in most OECD countries stagnated or declined between 2012 and 2023, with a significant proportion of the adult population in OECD countries having low skills. Among adults without upper secondary education, 61% scored at or below Level 1 in literacy in the OECD Survey of Adult Skills, meaning they could understand, at most, short texts on familiar topics. Among those with upper secondary attainment, 30% do not exceed Level 1, and even among adults with tertiary attainment, 13% score at or below this level. These results underscore that simply expanding educational opportunities is not enough; education systems must also ensure that learners develop the skills they need to thrive.

Tertiary education systems should therefore maintain rigorous standards even as they expand access. However, they must also adapt to a more diverse set of learners with different prior education and career expectations. This implies providing a broader range of skills, including advanced applied skills. To help prospective students identify programmes with the greatest benefits, tertiary education systems also need better ways to clearly signal the skills that their graduates possess.

Tackling teacher shortages to strengthen education systems

Highly qualified teachers are essential for high-performing education systems at all levels, but teacher shortages make it harder to recruit and retain well-trained educators. While most education systems can still fill nearly all open teaching positions, they do not always attract the highest qualified candidates. At the start of the 2022/23 school year, only Austria, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the Flemish and French Communities of Belgium reported more than 2% of teaching positions being unfilled. However, on average, nearly 7% of secondary teachers across the OECD are not fully qualified, meaning they do not hold all the required credentials.

High teacher turnover can further complicate recruitment. In most countries where data is available, 1% to 3% of teachers retire annually. However, the proportion of teachers leaving the profession for reasons other than retirement varies considerably, as it is influenced not only by teachers' working conditions and contractual arrangements, but also by national labour market contexts and career mobility cultures. In Denmark, Estonia and England, nearly 10% of teachers resign annually, necessitating a constant high level of recruitment. By contrast, fewer than 1% of teachers in France, Greece and Ireland resign each year, which creates greater staffing stability but also limits the renewal of the teaching workforce.

Attracting second-career teachers can help alleviate shortages while introducing broader skill sets into the profession. Sixteen out of 28 countries and economies with available data offer dedicated alternative pathways for individuals changing careers. Complementary measures to improve working conditions and provide opportunities for career progression could further support teacher recruitment and retention.

Note

← 1.  The magnitude of this change is subject to larger statistical uncertainty than other estimates in the report due to small sample sizes.