United Kingdom

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, Wales and Northern Ireland, respectively.

The Programme for International Student Assessment coordinated by the OECD currently ranks the overall knowledge and skills of British 15-year-olds as 13th in the world in reading, literacy, mathematics, and science with the average British student scoring 503.7, compared with the OECD average of 493.

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