The indicators published in Education at a Glance 2019 have been developed within this framework. The chapters are structured through the lens of the education system as a whole, although the indicators themselves are disaggregated and analysed across different levels of education and education settings, and may therefore speak to more than one element of the framework.
Chapter A, The output of educational institutions and the impact of learning, contains indicators on the output, outcomes and impact of education in the form of the overall attainment of the population, as well as the learning, economic and social outcomes (Figure A). Through this analysis, the indicators in this chapter provide context to shape policies on lifelong learning. They also provide insights into the policy levers needed to address areas where outcomes and impact may not be aligned with national strategic objectives.
Chapter B, Access to education, participation and progression, considers the full education system from early childhood to tertiary education and provides indicators on the enrolment, progression and completion of students at each level and programme (Figure A). These indicators can be considered a mixture of output and outcome, to the extent that the output of each education level serves as input to the next and that progression is the result of policies and practices at classroom, institution and system levels. But they can also provide context to identify areas where policy intervention is necessary to address issues of inequity, for example, or to encourage international mobility.
Chapters C and D relate to the input into educational systems (Figure A):
Chapter C, Financial resources invested in education, provides indicators on investment in education and educational institutions and how that investment is shared between public and private sources. These indicators are mainly policy levers, but they also help to explain specific learning outcomes. For example, expenditure on educational institutions per student is a key policy measure that most directly affects individual learners, but it also acts as a constraint on the learning environment in schools and learning conditions in the classroom.
Chapter D, Teachers, the learning environment and organisation of schools, provides indicators on instruction time, teachers’ working time, and teachers’ and school heads’ salaries. These indicators not only represent policy levers that can be manipulated, but also provide contexts for the quality of instruction and for the outcomes of individual learners. This chapter also presents data on the profile of teachers, and on admission systems to tertiary education.
In addition to the regular indicators and core statistics published, Education at a Glance also contains analytical work in textboxes. This work usually provides research elements that contribute to the understanding of the indicator, or additional analysis of a smaller number of countries that complement the findings presented.