Education in the United Kingdom

Education in United Kingdom
National education budget (2015)
Budget6.6% of GDP[1]
General details
Primary languagesEnglish, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh
Literacy (2020)
Total99%[2]
Male99%
Female99%
Attainment
Secondary diploma88%[5]
Post-secondary diploma45.7%[3][4]

Education in the United Kingdom is a devolved matter, with each of the countries of the United Kingdom having separate systems under separate governments. The UK Government is responsible for England, whilst the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive are responsible for Scotland,[6] Wales[7] and Northern Ireland, respectively.

For details of education in each country, see:

In 2018, the Programme for International Student Assessment, coordinated by the OECD, ranked the overall knowledge and skills of British 15-year-olds as 13th in the world in reading, literacy, mathematics, and science. The average British student scored 503.7, compared with the OECD average of 493.[8]

In 2014, the country spent 6.6% of its GDP on all levels of education – 1.4 percentage points above the OECD average of 5.2%.[1] In 2017, 45.7% of British people aged 25 to 64 had attended some form of post-secondary education.[3][4] Of British people aged 25 to 64, 22.6% had attained a bachelor's degree or higher,[3] whilst 52% of British people aged 25 to 34 had attended some form of tertiary education, about 4% above the OECD average of 44%.[9]

  1. ^ a b "Education Expenditures by Country" (PDF). National Center for Education Statistics. 11 May 2018. p. 7.
  2. ^ "U.K. Literacy Rate 1990–2022". MacroTrends. Retrieved 25 May 2022.
  3. ^ a b c "United Kingdom". OECD. Retrieved 27 August 2019.
  4. ^ a b "Educational attainment and labour-force status". OECD.
  5. ^ "International Educational Attainment" (PDF). p. 4. Retrieved 27 August 2019.
  6. ^ The Scottish Government Archived 27 November 2008 at the Wayback Machine scotland.gov.uk, accessed 6 June 2009
  7. ^ About Archived 18 February 2012 at the Wayback Machine wales.gov.uk, accessed 6 June 2009
  8. ^ "PISA: Programme for International Student Assessment". OECD.
  9. ^ "International Educational Attainment" (PDF). p. 6. Retrieved 27 August 2019.