Which Countries Are the Most Educated?

Tertiary qualifications are most common in Canada, at 64% of adults aged 25–64, and least common in South Africa, at 8%. These are the 2025 figures for 46 countries in Table A1.1 of the OECD’s Education at a Glance 2026, published on 29 September 2026. A qualification counts as tertiary at levels 5 to 8 of the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED): short-cycle tertiary, bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral. The table below sorts the figures from highest to lowest. The OECD average is 43%.

Source: OECD, Education at a Glance 2026, Table A1.1. Figures are for 2025 unless the note gives another year. Figures for Argentina, India and Indonesia come from the International Labour Organization’s database; the rest come from national labour force surveys compiled by an OECD network. Argentina and India use the older ISCED-97 classification. The table gives no figure for China, Peru or Saudi Arabia.

The ranking changes when you isolate younger adults. In the same report, South Korea leads among 25–34 year-olds at 71% in 2025, against an OECD average of 49%. Canada and Japan follow at 68%. Among South Koreans aged 55–64 the share is 35%, so the gap between the generations is 36 percentage points.

Other measures each put a different country first: years of schooling, what 15-year-olds can do in tests, and how many people work in research. The tests are the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The tertiary ranking, by contrast, counts qualifications.

B-S-J-Z (China) is four provinces and municipalities of China, not the whole country: Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Researchers are counted in full-time equivalents.

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Across all 83 countries with both figures, the correlation between adults’ years of schooling and mathematics scores in the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is 0.74. On that scale 1 is a perfect match and 0 is no relationship, so countries whose adults have more years of schooling tend to score higher. Among the 38 OECD members the correlation is 0.61. A comparison of countries like this cannot show whether more schooling raises scores.

The two measures describe different people. The United Nations’ Human Development Report gives each country’s mean years of schooling, which describes adults: the average years of education received by people aged 25 and over. PISA tests what 15-year-olds can do, so it describes today’s teenagers.

Even so, more years of schooling do not guarantee higher test scores, as the eight countries below show. Among the eight, the four highest scorers, Singapore, Japan, South Korea and Estonia, have the fewest years of schooling. But the eight are a selection.

Sources: United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2025 (mean years of schooling, 2023); OECD, PISA 2025 Results (Volume I), Table I.1 (mathematics).

Singapore’s adults average 12.0 years of schooling, the fewest of the eight. Yet in PISA 2025 its students outscored every other country’s in all three subjects. Iceland’s adults average 13.9 years, among the most in the world, but its students scored below the OECD average in every subject. Its mathematics score was 450, against an OECD average of 463. Across the 35 OECD members whose results can be compared since 2015, the average mathematics score fell 9 points between 2022 and 2025.

Among adults, qualifications and skills do not always match either. Across OECD countries, around 18% of adults with low skills in literacy, numeracy and adaptive problem solving hold a tertiary qualification, according to the OECD’s Survey of Adult Skills.

The countries at the bottom are mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Of the 15 countries with the lowest adult literacy rates in the latest figures of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 13 are in Sub-Saharan Africa. The remaining two are Afghanistan and Pakistan. In Niger, the average adult has received 1.4 years of schooling, the lowest figure in the United Nations’ Human Development Report.

Sources: UNESCO, International Literacy Day 2025 factsheet (adult literacy rates, people aged 15 and over, latest year available between 2015 and 2024); United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2025 (mean years of schooling, people aged 25 and over, 2023; 2020 for Mali and 2008 for South Sudan); UNESCO, Global Education Monitoring Report 2026 (out-of-school numbers).

The World Bank’s 2022 estimate, a simulation of the pandemic’s effect, puts learning poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa at about 89%, up from 86% before the pandemic. Learning poverty is the share of children who cannot read and understand a simple text by age 10. It counts children out of school as well as those in school who have not learned to read.

UNESCO also counts 273 million children, adolescents and youth of school age out of school in 2024, 3% more than in 2015. Three quarters of them live in Sub-Saharan Africa or Central and Southern Asia.

UNESCO’s 2026 report points to population growth and conflict. In low-income countries the school-age population has doubled since 2000, and the number out of school has risen 29% since 2015. Conflict disrupts both schooling and the counting of it.

Among young adults, women are now ahead. In every OECD country with a figure, women aged 25–34 are more likely than men of that age to hold a tertiary qualification. On average across the OECD, the shares in 2025 are 56% for women and 43% for men. The gap is 13 percentage points.

The gap is widest in Iceland, at 26 points in 2023. Slovenia follows at 24 points and Estonia at 23. Israel comes next, at 21 points. The gap is narrowest in Mexico, at 2 points. Among the partner countries in the OECD’s figures, India is the only one where young men are ahead, at 28% against 25%.

In some other countries, men are ahead. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) calls Afghanistan “the only country in the world where secondary and higher education is strictly forbidden to girls and women”. Since taking power in August 2021, the Taliban have barred girls from school beyond the primary level, and since 20 December 2022 they have barred women from university.

In Chad, Niger and Burkina Faso, fewer women than men enrol in tertiary education. UNESCO’s adjusted gender parity index for tertiary enrolment is 1 when women and men enrol at the same rate. It is 0.39 in Chad (2020) and 0.64 in Niger (2019). In Burkina Faso it is 0.74 (2024).

Women are also nearly two-thirds of the world’s adults who cannot read. By UNESCO’s count, they were 466 million of the 739 million in 2024.

Spending matters up to a point. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) compared spending with scores in its report on its Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) for 2025. It set each country’s cumulative spending per student from age 6 to 15, adjusted for differences in prices, against its average science score. Countries that spend more tend to score higher, but above about 85,000 US dollars per student spending and scores begin to decouple.

National income matters too: across all participants, half of the variation in average scores goes with income per person, though only 9% among OECD countries.

The OECD adds two warnings. The comparison is between countries at one point in time, so it “should not be interpreted as causal”. And more money helps only when it is used well. In the OECD’s words, “Increased spending needs to be accompanied by the effective allocation and use of financial resources if it is to translate into improvement in education.”

The tertiary figures follow the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) 2011, levels 5 to 8, except for Argentina and India, which use ISCED-97. Level 5 is short-cycle tertiary education, and ISCED sets its minimum length at two years, so shorter programmes do not count.

Short-cycle qualifications explain Canada’s lead. They are the highest qualification of 25% of Canadian adults, against an average of 7% across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Counting only bachelor’s degrees or higher, Canada’s share is 39% and Ireland’s is the highest, at 57%.

Data years vary. Most figures in Table A1.1 are for 2025, but Brazil’s and Chile’s are for 2024, and Iceland’s and Indonesia’s for 2023. The table gives no figure for China; the latest in the OECD’s database is 19%, for 2020.

The OECD’s figures cover 46 countries. For the rest of the world, this page uses mean years of schooling from the United Nations’ Human Development Report, which covers 193 countries. It also uses the literacy rates of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The verdict: what the evidence shows

It depends what you count, because each measure puts a different country first. Canada has the largest share of adults with a tertiary qualification among the 46 countries in figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). That is because 25% of its adults hold a short-cycle qualification as their highest. In the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), Singapore and four Chinese provinces and municipalities score highest. Germany has the most years of schooling in the United Nations’ Human Development Report, while 35% of its adults hold a tertiary qualification.

Niger’s adults average 1.4 years of schooling, the fewest in the Human Development Report, against Germany’s 14.3. Of the 15 countries with the lowest adult literacy rates, 13 are in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Across the 83 countries with both figures, more years of schooling go with higher PISA mathematics scores, though a comparison between countries cannot show whether more schooling raises scores.

Five claims, against the evidence

Claim“Canada is the most educated country in the world.”

On one measureCanada has the largest share of adults aged 25 to 64 with a tertiary qualification, 64%, of 46 countries in figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). On years of schooling and on test scores, other countries lead.

Claim“More years in school do not mean better results.”

Not across countriesA hand-picked eight can look that way. Across all 83 countries with both figures, more years of adult schooling go with higher mathematics scores in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a correlation of 0.74.

Claim“Few degrees means a poorly educated workforce.”

Not in GermanyOnly 35% of German adults hold a tertiary qualification, but they average 14.3 years of schooling, the most in the United Nations’ Human Development Report. About 1.2 million people in Germany were in apprenticeships at the end of 2025.

Claim“Spending more on schools raises scores.”

Up to a pointIn PISA 2025, countries that spend more per student tend to score higher in science. But above about 85,000 US dollars per student from age 6 to 15, spending and scores begin to decouple. The OECD says the comparison is not causal.

Claim“Men are better educated than women.”

Not among young adults in the OECDIn every OECD country with a figure, women aged 25 to 34 are more likely than men to hold a tertiary qualification. In 2024, women were 466 million of the world’s 739 million adults who could not read.

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What would change this conclusion

This article concludes that: (1) Canada has the largest share of adults aged 25 to 64 with a tertiary qualification among the 46 countries in the OECD’s figures; (2) other measures put other countries first: South Korea among adults aged 25 to 34, Singapore and the four Chinese provinces and municipalities in PISA, Germany in years of schooling and Liechtenstein in researchers per million people; (3) across the 83 countries with both figures, more years of adult schooling go with higher PISA mathematics scores.

These conclusions would be falsified by:

• OECD figures for China, Peru or Saudi Arabia, which Table A1.1 lacks, showing a share above Canada’s 64%

• Figures for the same year in which one country led on qualifications, years of schooling and test scores together, which would give the question a single answer

• A later round of PISA in which countries whose adults have more years of schooling no longer tend to score higher