Access to education continues to expand worldwide but the socio-economic divisions between tertiary-educated adults and the rest of society are growing. Governments must do more to ensure that everyone has the same opportunity to a good education early in life, according to a new OECD report.
Education at a Glance 2014 says that educational mobility has started to slow down in the industrialised world. The number of people with lower qualifications than their parents is 9% among 55-64 year-olds to 12% among 35-44 year-olds and 16% among 25-34 year-olds.
At the same time, among the younger age group of 25-34 year-olds, where the tertiary attainment rate had risen to 43%, the impact of parents’ educational background was just as strong: of adults with at least one tertiary-educated parent, 65% attained a tertiary qualification, while of the adults with low-educated parents only 23% did. These data suggest that the expansion in education has not translated into a more inclusive society. More...