In India, 2.5% of students in upper secondary initial education repeated a grade in 2019, compared to 3% on average across OECD countries. Boys are more likely to repeat a grade at upper secondary initial education than girls. In India, 56% of repeaters at upper secondary level were boys, slightly lower than the OECD average of 57%.
Education at a Glance 2021
OECD Indicators
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Education at a Glance
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India
Inequalities in education and outcomes
Note: A data point above 0 means there are more women than men attaining tertiary education. A data point below 0 means there are more men than women attaining tertiary education.
1. Year of reference differs from 2020. Refer to the source table for more details.
2. Data for tertiary education include upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary programmes (less than 5% of adults are in this group).
Countries are ranked in descending order of the percentage-point difference between the share of tertiary-educated women and men.
Source: OECD (2021), Table A1.2. See Source section for more information and Annex 3 for notes (https://www.oecd.org/education/education-at-a-glance/EAG2021_Annex3_ChapterA.pdf).
Tertiary education has been expanding in the last decades, and, in 2020, 25-34 year-old women were more likely than men to achieve tertiary education in all OECD countries. In India, 17% of 25‑34 year-old women had a tertiary qualification in 2019 compared to 22% of their male peers, while on average across OECD countries the shares were 52% among young women and 39% among young men (Figure 1).
Young women are less likely to be employed than young men, particularly those with lower levels of education. Only 22% of 25-34 year-old women with below upper secondary attainment were employed in 2019 compared to 94% of men in India. This gender difference is larger than the average across OECD countries, where 43% of women and 69% of men with below upper secondary attainment are employed.
International student mobility at the tertiary level has risen steadily reaching about 47 400 students in India and representing less than 1% of tertiary students in 2019 (Figure 1). The largest share of foreign tertiary students studying in India comes from Nepal. Students from low and lower-middle income countries are generally less likely to study abroad. In 2019, they represented 29% of international students in OECD countries, compared to 76% in India.
Women are over-represented among primary, lower secondary and upper secondary teachers (representing respectively 82%, 68% and 60% of teachers at these levels on average across OECD countries in 2019). However, women are under-represented in tertiary education (44% of tertiary teachers on average). In India, the proportion of female teachers ranged from 54% at the primary level to 48% at lower secondary level, 43% at upper secondary level, and 42% at the tertiary level in 2019.
References
OECD (2021), Education at a Glance 2021: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://dx.doi.org/10.1787/69096873-en.
OECD (2021), “Regional education”, OECD Regional Statistics (database), https://dx.doi.org/10.1787/213e806c-en (accessed on 27 July 2021).
OECD (2021), “The state of global education – 18 months into the pandemic”, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/1a23bb23-en.
More information
For more information on Education at a Glance 2021 and to access the full set of Indicators, see: https://doi.org/10.1787/b35a14e5-en
For more information on the methodology used during the data collection for each indicator, the references to the sources and the specific notes for each country, see Annex 3 (https://www.oecd.org/education/education-at-a-glance/EAG2021_Annex3.pdf).
For general information on the methodology, please refer to the OECD Handbook for Internationally Comparative Education Statistics: Concepts, Standards, Definitions and Classifications (https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264304444-en).
Updated data can be found on line at http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/eag-data-en and by following the StatLinks 2under the tables and charts in the publication.
Data on subnational regions for selected indicators are available in the OECD Regional Statistics (database) (OECD, 2021). When interpreting the results on subnational entities, readers should take into account that the population size of subnational entities can vary widely within countries. For example, regional variation in enrolment may be influenced by students attending school in a different region from their area of residence, particularly at higher levels of education. Also, regional disparities tend to be higher when more subnational entities are used in the analysis.
Explore, compare and visualise more data and analysis using the Education GPS:
https://gpseducation.oecd.org/
The data on educational responses during COVID-19 were collected and processed by the OECD based on the Survey on Joint National Responses to COVID-19 School Closures, a collaborative effort conducted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS); the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF); the World Bank; and the OECD.
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Questions can be directed to: Marie-Helene Doumet Directorate for Education and Skills |
Country note authors: Etienne Albiser, Heewoon Bae, Andrea Borlizzi, António Carvalho, Eric Charbonnier, Corinne Heckmann, Bruce Golding, Yanjun Guo, Gara Rojas Gonzalez, Daniel Sanchez Serra, Markus Schwabe and Giovanni Maria Semeraro |
This work is published under the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official views of OECD member countries.
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