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Data for 2021

Mean Years of Schooling, 2021

2021, as UNDP Human Development Report Office’s 2025 release gives it · stored as published, never rewritten

Mean Years of Schooling, 2021 covers 192 countries. Germany is highest, at 14.29637; Niger is lowest, at 1.41229. The middle country reads 9.87505. Against 2020, 171 values changed (155 up, 16 down), the same countries are covered.

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Mean Years of Schooling · Data for 2021

HighestGermany

14.29637

LowestNiger

1.41229

Shaded by value in five groups of equal size, darkest at the better end.

01Position · derived

The table

Every country and every column of Mean Years of Schooling, 2021, as published. UNDP Human Development Report Office ranks nobody on this measure; the position is derived here by ordering the published values. “=” marks a shared position.

Showing 25 of 192 countries · select a heading to sort

Mean Years of Schooling, 2021: every country, as published by UNDP Human Development Report Office.
derived
1GermanyDEUWestern Europe14.29637
2SwitzerlandCHEWestern Europe13.94912
3IcelandISLNorthern Europe13.90893
4CanadaCANNorthern America13.87000
5LithuaniaLTUNorthern Europe13.61069
6United StatesUSANorthern America13.57550
7EstoniaESTNorthern Europe13.56217
8IsraelISRWestern Asia13.53459
9United KingdomGBRNorthern Europe13.49000
10LatviaLVANorthern Europe13.40944
11PalauPLWMicronesia13.29903
12PolandPOLEastern Europe13.20854
13NorwayNORNorthern Europe13.11796
14SlovakiaSVKEastern Europe13.10320
15DenmarkDNKNorthern Europe13.02732
16FinlandFINNorthern Europe12.97963
17CzechiaCZEEastern Europe12.96318
18SloveniaSVNSouthern Europe12.95120
19New ZealandNZLAustralia and New Zealand12.88300
20BahamasBHSCaribbean12.81442
21AustraliaAUSAustralia and New Zealand12.78000
22MontenegroMNESouthern Europe12.77393
23United Arab EmiratesAREWestern Asia12.77000
24SwedenSWENorthern Europe12.74033
25GeorgiaGEOWestern Asia12.74000

02In 2021

At either end

The 5 countries at each end of the headline.

Highest

  1. 1Germany14.29637
  2. 2Switzerland13.94912
  3. 3Iceland13.90893
  4. 4Canada13.87000
  5. 5Lithuania13.61069

Lowest

  1. 192Niger1.41229
  2. 191Mali1.63000
  3. 190Burkina Faso2.26655
  4. 189Chad2.33498
  5. 188Ethiopia2.40254

A higher value is the better result. The middle country reads 9.87505. “Shared” marks a value another country also holds.

032020 → 2021

Since 2020

What changed between 2020 and this one: who joined or left, and how far the headline moved.

  • +0 / −0countries joined / left
  • 171values changed, of 192 in both
  • 155 · 16rose · fell
  • 21unchanged

Rose most

Fell most

Both years come from the same release, so a difference here is a change in the data, not a revision of it. Every country’s full history is charted on the statistic page.

04Caveats

Read before you use

What this edition’s numbers are and are not, worked out from the file itself.

How values are stored

  • One year of the 2025 release

    Every year in this series comes from UNDP Human Development Report Office’s 2025 release, recalculated on one method. It can differ from what was first published for 2021.

  • The position is ours

    UNDP Human Development Report Office publishes values only; the order is this site’s.

  • Nothing missing

    Every one of the 192 countries has every column.

05The files

Download and cite

The table as a file, digit for digit, what this site changed, and a citation for this edition.

Licence in full

What this site changed: Reshaped into one row per country: regional and income-group totals are left out, only the columns listed are kept, each row gets its ISO 3166 code, and some country names are brought to one spelling. No value is recalculated, rescaled or rounded.

Licence: CC BY 3.0 IGO · what it allows, in plain words

Cite this edition

UNDP Human Development Report Office (2021). Mean Years of Schooling, 2021 [data set], describing 2021. As held by Nations Inquiry, https://nationsinquiry.com/datasets/mean-years-schooling/2021

0634 held

Other years

07Questions

Mean Years of Schooling, 2021: questions and answers

Which country has the highest mean years of schooling in Mean Years of Schooling, 2021?

Germany, at 14.29637, of the 192 countries in the file.

What year does Mean Years of Schooling, 2021 describe?

2021.

How many countries does Mean Years of Schooling, 2021 cover?

192.

Where can I download Mean Years of Schooling, 2021?

On this page, as a CSV file holding every value exactly as published, or from the publisher’s own site, linked below.

Is Mean Years of Schooling, 2021 the newest?

No. The newest held here is Mean Years of Schooling, 2023.

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