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Introductory Note

International Education Comparisons: A Compendium of published information on educational provision and achievement in 10 countries

The National Audit Office has prepared a Compendium of published information on educational provision and achievements in 10 countries including the United Kingdom and other major industrialised nations.

The Compendium was compiled at the request of members of the Committee of Public Accounts and sets out relative positions and trends over time. 1 The data sources used are not fully compatible and in particular, coverage, definitions and timing vary between countries. The Compendium does not examine the cause of differences between countries, 2 nor can conclusions about them be reached on the basis of just the information presented.

The provision of education and the educational achievement of the population in any given country depend on its culture, systems and ways of measuring achievement. It is therefore not possible to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of different education systems on the basis of the raw data. But the Compendium does provide a starting point for further exploration of relative performance of such systems.

1The Compendium is available on the National Audit Office website: www.nao.org.uk

2The Compendium was prepared by National Audit Office staff in response to a request by the Committee of Public Accounts and is not a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General to Parliament. It provides information drawn from published sources on healthcare systems, provision of health care and health achievements in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Sweden and the United States. The main data source is OECD Health Data 2002. The National Audit Office has used these and other data as published and gives no warranty as to their accuracy.