The percentage of people completing a secondary education varies significantly between countries. That system is designed to prepare students for a university level education and failure to complete it can create major challenges in finding work. According to a recent report, 17 percent of younger adults (aged 25-34) had not attained an upper secondary level education in 2013 compared to 34 percent of older adults (aged 55-64) across OECD countries.
The report also used UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS) data to gauge secondary education completion rates in other countries. This revealed that in China, 64 percent of 25-34 year olds failed to attain an upper secondary level education. Indonesia and Mexico also had high rates of young people failing to complete secondary school. Elsewhere, early-school leavers are a rare sight in South Korea where only 2 percent of young people failed to attain a secondary education. In the United States, an average of one in ten students fails to finish high school.
*Click below to enlarge (charted by Statista)
