Entitled Education Counts: Benchmarking Progress in 19 WEI Countries*, the report presents data on educational attainment, finance, participation, as well as teachers and the learning environment for the school year ending in 2005. For comparative purposes, it also provides benchmarks for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and an additional 12 middle-income countries.

In total, the publication presents data for 63 countries at different stages of development that comprise 71% of the world’s population and produce over 90% of the global gross domestic product (GDP).

The main aim of the WEI programme is to establish a comparative perspective on key policy issues from which to assess changes in education systems across a diverse group of countries. Most of the participants are close to achieving universal primary education. Therefore, the WEI programme focuses on efforts to monitor and improve educational quality at all levels (including primary) and access to higher levels of learning. 

Key findings from the report include:

• China has twice as many university graduates as the United States, which used to be the world leader, according to statistics published for the first time.
• In 2005, more students graduated from universities in the 19 WEI countries than in the 30 Member States of the OECD combined.
• The growth in tertiary education has come at a high cost for WEI countries, which spend 53% of GDP per capita per tertiary student compared to the 40% OECD average.
• Overall, children in WEI countries can expect to spend about 14 years in school, about four years less than in an average OECD country. The gap is largely explained by lower WEI participation rates in upper secondary and tertiary education.
• In an average WEI country, just more than one in five upper secondary students is enrolled in technical and vocational education, which is about one-half of the OECD average.
• Class size varies considerably among WEI countries, with 42 pupils in primary school classes in Egypt and Jamaica, compared to just 16 pupils per class in the Russian Federation – which is less than in many OECD countries.

The following resources are available online:

• The report in English.
• Fact-sheet highlighting the publication available in English, Portuguese or Spanish.
• Data tables in EXCEL:
     Section 1 - Outputs of education systems
     Section 2 - Sources and flows of education expenditure
     Section 3 - Levels and uses of education expenditure
     Section 4 - Access to education
     Section 5 - Teachers and the learning environment
(Tables highlighted in yellow do not appear in the print version of the report.)
• Report annexes which include:
     general notes
     technical notes on the indicators
     cross-reference between tables and technical notes
     ISCED mapping
• Questionnaires and manuals used to collect data for this report.

* Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Jordan, Malaysia, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Russian Federation, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tunisia, Uruguay and Zimbabwe.