The largest investor in education is the United States. This country accounts for 4% of the world's population aged 5-25 and 28% of global education spending. The American state (not private and public structures) spends almost as much on these purposes as all the countries of the Arab world, Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Latin America, South and West Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Africa is recognized as the world's outsider: it is home to 15% of all school and university age individuals, who account for only 2.4% of global education spending. For comparison, Central and Eastern Europe (which includes many former USSR states) accounts for 6.7% of these funds, and all countries of Central Asia – 0.3%.
Most countries spend more than 2% of their GDP on education. The only exceptions are 11 countries, including the UAE, Qatar, Indonesia, the Dominican Republic, Cameroon, Zambia, and others. Equatorial Guinea spends a record low amount on the education of its younger generation – only 0.6% of GDP.
In turn, the most generous are ten countries that spend more than 8% of GDP on education. These include Vanuatu, the Marshall Islands (a record 11.7%), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Guyana, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Cuba, Iceland, Denmark, Botswana, and Lesotho.
The situation in post-Soviet states is as follows: Belarus - 6% of GDP, Ukraine – 6.4%, Moldova – 4.3%, Estonia – 5.1%, Latvia – 4.9%, Lithuania – 4.8%, Azerbaijan – 2.5%, Kazakhstan – 2.3%, Kyrgyzstan – 4.4% and Tajikistan – 3.5% (information for other countries is not provided). For comparison, the US spends 5.6% of GDP on education, the UK – 5.4%, Germany – 4.6%, Israel – 6.9%, India – 3.8%, Iran – 4.7%.
The report also provides interesting statistics on students studying abroad. In total, more than 2.7 million young people received education in foreign universities in 2005. Of these, 1.86 million went to study in North America and Western Europe. The second most popular region - Asia-Pacific - accepted almost 453,000 international students. In 2005, more than 39,000 Russians studied abroad (the largest number went to Germany, the USA and Ukraine), almost 27,000 Ukrainians (most often in Germany, Russia and Poland), 11,200 Belarusians (Russia, Germany, Poland), 10,000 Moldovans (Romania, Russia, Ukraine), almost 3,500 Armenians (respectively, Russia, USA, Germany), 4,000 Azerbaijanis (Turkey, Russia, Germany), more than 7,100 Georgians (Germany, Russia, Armenia), more than 29,000 Kazakhs (preferring Russia, Turkey and Germany), almost 2,800 Tajiks (Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey), about 6,300 Turkmen (Azerbaijan, Russia and Turkey), 23,200 Uzbeks (Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Kazakhstan), 3,600 Estonians (Russia, Germany and Finland), 3,500 Latvians (Germany, Russia, USA), 6,500 Lithuanians (Germany, Russia, USA). For comparison, 47,000 people left the USA to study abroad, most of them to the UK, Canada and Australia.
In Russia, a total of 90,400 foreign students studied (almost half of them came from other post-Soviet states), in Ukraine – 23,400, in Belarus – 3,600, in Moldova – 2,300, in Estonia - just over 1,000, in Latvia – 1,300, in Armenia – 3,800, in Azerbaijan – 2,500, in Kazakhstan – 9,100, in Kyrgyzstan – 23,600 (the universities of this republic are enormously popular among natives of other Central Asian states), in Tajikistan - 1,000 (data for other countries are not provided).
The world leaders in this indicator are the USA (590,000 foreign students), the UK (almost 319,000) and Germany (259,000).