Russians are the Most Well Educated: UK Ranked Seventh

Russia is the most educated country in the world, according to the latest figures from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), followed by Canada and then Japan.

"Russia has, according to the OECD, a 'historically strong investment in education'," the authors of the report noted, but added that this image could be tarnished by recent reports of corruption.

"Reports suggest widespread corruption in the education system, including cheating on standardized tests, selling of doctorates to politicians and the wealthy and fake thesis factories."

The United States and United Kingdom do make it into the top ten, in fifth and seventh places respectively.

Overall spending on education in the UK has gone up and the country's tertiary graduation rates have increased, according to 24/7 Wall St. journal that has released the list of world's most educated countries. In addition, a growing interest from international students in the UK since 2000 has paid off in the ranking as the country is second only to the United States for the most preferred destination for international studies.

"The most educated populations tend to be in countries where spending on all levels of education is among the highest. The United States, for example, spent 7.3% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on education in 2010, the sixth highest among the countries," the authors said.

The report suggests that most of the best educated countries tend to have higher levels of advanced skills, which account for low unemployment rates in those countries. Moreover, the best educated countries excel in literacy and maths proficiency exams (mainly Japan, Canada and Finland) and have lower unemployment levels.

"After the strong impact of the financial crisis, not surprisingly, unemployment rates increased at each level of education, but the increase has been smaller among higher-educated people. At higher levels of attainment, people are less exposed to unemployment and have better chances to keep participating actively in the economic system, for the benefit of both individuals and society," OECD's analyst, Gara Rojas González, was quoted as saying by the journal.

Top ten educated countries:

1) Russia

2) Canada

3) Japan

4) Israel

5) United States

6) Korea

7) UK

8) New Zealand

9) Finland

10) Australia

The list was prepared after analysing the data of OECD's Education at a Glance 2013 report.

The ten most educated countries were chosen based on the highest proportion of adults holding a college degree and the total spending on education.