International student mobility highlights in the OECD�s Education at a Glance 2011

Education at a Glance 2011 was released today by the OECD. The report is replete with data about education systems, patterns, trends, etc., and is well worth reading.

Free copies of the full report (497 pp) and the highlights version (98 pp) are available in PDF format via the links I provided in this sentence. An on-line summary is available here too, with links to country notes for Brazil (in English; in Portuguese, Chile, Estonia, France (in French), Germany (in English; in German), Greece, Italy (in English) (in Italian), Japan (in English, in Japanese), Korea, Mexico (in English; in Spanish), Spain (in English; in Spanish), and the United Kingdom.

While all of the sections are worth reading, I always find the data regarding international student mobility too hard to resist glancing at when the report first comes out. These six graphics, and associated highlights (all but the first extracted from the highlights version of Education at a Glance 2011) will give you a flavour of some of the noteworthy student mobility trends. Further details regarding mobility trends and patterns can be found in the full report (pp. 318-339).

How many students study abroad?

• In 2009, almost 3.7 million tertiary students were enrolled outside their country of citizenship, representing an increase of more than 6% on the previous year.
  
• Just over 77% of students worldwide who study abroad do so in OECD countries.
  
• In absolute terms, the largest numbers of international students are from China, India and Korea. Asians account for 52% of all students studying abroad worldwide.