Sovereign and dependent territory rows of the World Bank “School enrollment, secondary (% gross)” indicator (top 30 by most recent year). Gross ratio includes over-age and repeating students; values can exceed 100%. Aggregates (region.id === “NA”) excluded.
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How to use this chart
Play/Pause starts and stops the year-by-year animation, the year slider jumps to any year, and the speed selector (0.5×, 1×, 2×) changes playback speed. Each year shows the top 12 entries out of the 30 held in the dataset.
About this ranking
About this metric. “Secondary School Enrollment by Country (Time Series)” reformats data published by the World Bank (World Bank indicator code SE.SEC.ENRR). Values are expressed in %.
What to watch. Against a world average that climbed from about 30% in the 1960s to over 76%, watch the Nordic bars exceed 120% — a quirk of gross enrollment counting adult and repeating students — while Chad and Niger still sit in the 30s. The gap is the story.
Caveats. Gross enrollment divides all students by the official age group, so repeaters and adult learners push values past 100% — it is not the share of children in school (that is net enrollment). Treat 120% as an accounting artefact, not universal attendance.
Trends in the data
Read this ranking at face value and you will misread it. Gross enrolment divides enrolled students by the population of the official age group, so repeaters and adults returning to study enter the numerator and the figure exceeds 100%. All 16 countries with a 2024 value are above 100%, from Monaco at 158.55% down to Estonia at 108.54%. “158% enrolment” does not mean 1.6 students per place; it means that many enrolled students fall outside the official age band.
Coverage also swings a great deal. Only 2 countries have a value in 1970, 6 in 1988, 12 in 2000, a maximum of 26 in 2015, and 16 again in 2024. The 1970 “leader” is Uruguay at 59.66%, which means only that it was the higher of the two countries reporting. The rank at the left edge carries no global meaning, and the right edge is a ranking among the sixteen that reported.
The long-run change is still legible. The 30-country average rose from 32.71% in 1970 to 123.76% in 2024. As recently as 2006, Belgium led at 158.69% while the bottom of the 19 reporting countries included Costa Rica at 85.96% and Türkiye at 88.55% — some were still short of 100%. By 2024 every one is above it. More countries now design secondary education as something everyone passes through.
Note too how many small states and territories are in the field. Monaco, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Aruba, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Sint Maarten and Liechtenstein all have small populations, where a change of a few dozen enrolments moves the ratio sharply. An indicator that ranks countries of very different sizes on the same ratio has a structural tendency to collect small states at the top. Japan and South Korea sit at a similar level to these leaders but are pushed out of the top 30 by countries with higher values.
Trivia quiz
In Japan's school system, which stage does "secondary education" correspond to?
Junior high and high school (lower and upper secondary) — between primary (elementary) and tertiary (university) education. (Source)
Why can the gross enrolment ratio (GER) exceed 100%?
Because grade repetition and early/late enrolment put students outside the official age range into the numerator; the net ratio (NER) counts only age-appropriate enrolment. (Source)
Which UN Sustainable Development Goal covers "quality education for all"?
SDG 4, which aims for inclusive, equitable, quality education for everyone by 2030. (Source)
Source
World Bank — School enrollment, secondary (% gross) (SE.SEC.ENRR)