12 Surprising Facts About Secondary School Around The World

1. While primary school education is free in many countries, students in 24% of the world’s countries have to pay tuition to continue on to secondary school.

The countries in red require students to pay for tuition to go to secondary school. See if your country offers free tuition for all students here. Map: World Policy Forum.

2. If you’re a girl, going to secondary school has HUGE benefits. If all girls had secondary education… child marriage would drop by 64%.

The number of child brides around the world would fall from almost 2.9 million to just over one million. Credit: EFA Global Monitoring Report .

3. …Early births for girls would fall by 59%.

Average age at first birth differs by more than three years between women without education and women with secondary education. In Nigeria, for example, women with no education gave birth for the first time at age 18, on average, compared with age 25 for those with at least secondary education. Credit: EFA Global Monitoring Report .

4. …The under-five mortality rate would fall by 49%.

5. In fact, every year of school a child takes, his/her earnings increase by 10% on average!

An annual savings of 3 million lives. Credit: EFA Global Monitoring Report .

6. There are currently 62 million girls around the world who are out of school.

Some countries even guarantee free and compulsory secondary education for girls in their constitution — but not many. Credit: UNESCO/ World Policy Forum

7. In 29 countries around the world, students are required to complete secondary school!

In countries like Chile, Russia and Kenya, secondary school is compulsory. See the full map here. Credit: World Policy Forum

8. It’s not just rich countries that have made secondary education free. Here are a few developing countries (in green) that will pay for you to go to secondary school until you graduate:

There are countries in every income group that have managed to make secondary school tuition free, including 38% of low income, 78% of middle income and 94% of high income. Nearly half of the countries that charge school fees for secondary school devote less than 4% of their GDP to education. Explore the map here. Credit: World Policy Forum.

9. Pupils start to drop off as they transition from primary to secondary school.

10. These are some of the reasons why.

11. We could deliver free primary and secondary education in all the poor countries of the world for $32 billion per year. That’s less than a single week’s global military spending!

12. Here’s a snapshot of how many years of education the average student gets in countries around the world.

Malala’s home country of Pakistan has one of the lowest average number of school years attended in the world.

At Malala Fund, we believe that when a girl adds +12 years of education to her life, she can create real change in her community. Agree? Sign up to Malala’s movement and stay updated with the fight for 12 years of free, quality education for ALL children.