The 2005 edition of Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators provides a rich, comparable and up-to-date array of indicators on the performance of education systems. In doing so, it represents the consensus of professional thinking on how to measure the current state of education internationally.

The indicators look at who participates in education, what is spent on it and how education systems operate, and at the results achieved. The latter includes indicators on a wide range of outcomes ranging from comparisons of student performance in key subject areas to the impact of education on earnings and adults’ chances of employment.

New material in this edition includes:

• Results of the 2003 survey of OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA),
• Data on the distribution of earnings for individuals with different educational levels as well as first evidence of non-economic outcomes of education,
• Comparisons of the participation of labour force members in continuing education and training,
• An analysis of student learning time out of school,
• A comparison between the performance of public and private schools, and
• Data on the policies and practices secondary school systems employ to differentiate among students and the impact of these on outcomes.

ExcelTM spreadsheets used to create the tables and charts in this book are available via the StatLinks printed in this book. You can also find the complete OECD Education Database, from which Education at a Glance 2005 was drawn, available via the OECD iLibrary at http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/edu-data-en.