Most Educated Countries in the World

According to the recently published report on "Education at a Glance 2011" by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD] has reported that in the past 50 years, the college graduation rates have increased nearly by 200 percent in the developed countries.

The report also showed that even though education has improved across the board, it has failed to improve in an even manner, as there are some countries enjoying much greater rates in terms of educational attainment than the other countries.

Based on the report released by OECD, 24/7 Wall St. has indentified the most educated countries in the world. According to that list, you can see that most of the educated people are from some of the wealthiest countries in the world, which included countries like U.S., Canada, Japan, New Zealand etc. All these countries aggressively invest for the educational system in their respective country.

Although these developed countries had the educated population from a long time, gradually that percentage has increased over the time. The increases are modest compared to developing countries. So, these are the top 5 educated countries identified by the 24/7 Wall St., according to the report provided by OECD.

1.Canada:

Canada

In this country, around 50 percent of its population has completed its tertiary education. This percentage is considered the highest rate in the OECD. Every year, the public and private expenditure on education amount up to 2.5 percent of GDP, which is considered as the fourth highest rate in the world. The tertiary education spending accounts for 41 percent, which is the total percentage on education spent in the country. You should also consider that, nearly 25 percent of the students have an immigrant background.

2.Israel:

Israel

Even though there is no specific data on the percentage of Israelis with postsecondary education dating back to 1999, the numbers when compared to 2002 show that the growth is slowing considerably when compared to other countries. Around 46 percent of the adults aged from 25 to 64 had a tertiary education as of 2006. Just about 78 percent of the funds spent on educational institutions in Israel are of public funds. This is the only country where expenditure on educational institutions as a percentage of GDP decreased from 2000 to 2008. This country also had the highest increase in overall population with about 19.02 percent from 2000 to 2009.

3.Japan:

Japan

In this country, around 44 percent of the adults have some form of postsecondary education. When we compare to this percentage, the United States percent has gone down, as it is just up to 41 percent. When you consider the population growth of Japan, it has just increased up to 0.46 percent between the year 2000 and 2009, which is considered as the sixth slowest growth rate in the OECD. Japan along with Finland is the third highest upper-secondary graduation rate in the world with 95 percent.

4.United States:

United Status

In the U.S. around 41 percent of the country's citizens have done the postsecondary education. The country has experienced quite a larger growth in its population from 2000 to 2009 with around 8.68 percent in its population, which is the 12th highest among OECD countries. Just about 71 percent of funding for the educational institutions in the country comes from the public funds and this percent places the country as the sixth lowest according to this measure. When you have a look at the country's largest share of adults with tertiary education among the OECD countries, the country's share is about 25.8 percent.

5.New Zealand:

New Zealand

Around 40 percent of the country's population engages in tertiary education and becomes the fifth highest rate in the world. However, the nation had a rapid population growth of 11.88 percent between the year 2000 and 2009. This percent is considered as the eighth largest increase in the OECD. The high output from the secondary schools is also a reason for the high rate of tertiary graduates in the country. According to the report more than 90 percent of the population graduates from secondary school in the country.