Whole View of Shanghai Nanyang Model High School Campus - June 2011

Nakano Junior and Senior High School Attached to Meiji University

Enrollment in educational institutions varies considerably across the

continent A continent is any of several large landmasses. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven geographical regions In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas t ...

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

, as evidenced by data maintained by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). UNESCO's measurement categories for education are used in the context of international development work and are adopted by the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...

in its EdStats database. The

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

issues a

Human Development Index The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistic composite index of life expectancy, education (mean years of schooling completed and expected years of schooling upon entering the education system), and per capita income indicators, wh ...

for each nation, of which the

Education Index An Education index is a component of the Human Development Index published every year by the United Nations Development Programme. Alongside the Economical indicators and Life Expectancy Index, it helps measure the educational attainment, GNI ...

is a component.

Participation in education

The Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) is a component of the

. It expresses the number of students enrolled in a given level of education as a percentage of the number of people within the official age for that level of education. GER can exceed 100% because some enrolled students may fall outside the official age range. The tables below show GER for each country in Asia. It is organized into five regions of population:

South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth descr ...

East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both Geography, geographical and culture, ethno-cultural terms. The modern State (polity), states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. ...

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...

West Asia Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes Ana ...

and

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

. Data is shown for four levels of education:

pre-primary Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cent ...

, primary, secondary and

tertiary Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...

. (Tertiary education is also referred to as

higher education Higher education is tertiary education leading to award of an academic degree. Higher education, also called post-secondary education, third-level or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after comple ...

). The last year for which data are available is shown in parentheses following each number in the table. If the year is the same as for the column to the left, the year is omitted.

Challenges and Opportunities

Low GER

As Asian nations compete in the global economy and aspire to join the developed nations, there is concern that rates of education may not be keeping pace. By comparison,

Gross Enrollment Rate Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) or Gross Enrolment Index (GEI) is a statistical measure used in the education sector, and formerly by the UN in its Education Index, to determine the number of students enrolled in school at several different grade lev ...

s for North America and Western Europe in 2013 were 84.3% for pre-primary, 101.1% for primary, 105.1% for secondary, and 76.6% for tertiary education.

Supply versus demand

Many Asian nations lack the capacity to scale up their enrollment to meet the escalating demand.

Quality in education at scale

There is also concern about a quality gap, as nations seek to scale up their enrollment quickly. A recent HSBC survey of 8400 parents in 15 Asia-Pacific countries revealed that parents from Hong Kong spend the most on their children's education to ensure a quality education that increases their competitiveness in the labor market. On average, parents in Hong Kong spend an average of $132,100 per child, which is almost three times as much as the global amount of $44,200. Singapore and Taiwan followed with education expenditures of $70,939 and $56,400 respectively.

Skills gap

There is concern about a gap between the education sought by the labor market and what is being taught in the educational institutions.

Demographic dividend

Many Asian countries - mostly in East Asia and Southeast Asia - experienced a

demographic dividend Demographic dividend, as defined by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), is "the economic growth potential that can result from shifts in a population’s age structure, mainly when the share of the working-age population (15 to 64) is large ...

that boosted their economies during the past few decades. There is a widespread view that the South Asian countries are poised to benefit from a

because their populations are young relative to the developed countries. However, reaping this dividend is expected to require a workforce that is well educated, which means, at a minimum, increasing enrollment rates and educational quality.

Progress

Even though many Asian nations still have low GER compared with their North American and Western European counterparts, there has been considerable progress in recent years. For example, consider the change in GER over ten years preceding the latest data reported, for the three most populous Asian countries: China, India and Indonesia. All three countries had achieved virtually universal primary education (close to 100%) before this ten-year period, so consider the other three levels. Over a ten-year period, China's GER increased from 40% to 74% for

, from 60% to 92% for secondary, and from 15% to 30% for

tertiary education Tertiary education, also referred to as third-level, third-stage or post-secondary education, is the educational level following the completion of secondary education. The World Bank, for example, defines tertiary education as including univers ...

. India's GER increased from 25% to 58% for

, from 48% to 71% for secondary, and from 11% to 25% for

. Indonesia's GER increased from 26% to 51% for

, from 61% to 83% for secondary, and from 15% to 32% for

References

{{Asia topics