The United Kingdom leads in a few categories, especially in higher education where 35.6% of students graduate with a university degree, that's more than any of the other 30 countries. Aside from that, UK students are likely to spend more time in full-time education and are most likely to undergo further training once they've finished university.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation (OECD) recently produced their annual analysis of education, a report comparing data from 30 developed countries from 1995-1999.

But perhaps the biggest achievement in the findings is that universities in the UK continue to educate more people with less funding than other developed nations. The figures state that British universities took on 15% more students between 1995 and 1999 whilst the amount of funding stayed at the same level.

But, although we're producing more university graduates than any other industrialised country, we also have one of the largest gaps between the most and least well-educated. Worrying, because the report also found that the higher level of education in a person, the better prospects and pay packages they'll achieve: A person in their early thirties with a degree earns on average 60% more than their colleagues with just their schooling (ie GCSE) and higher (ie A Level) qualifications.

And we're also second in the OECD adult illiteracy table, just after the United States of America. The report emphasised that that these results were "the product of outcomes of education and learning over many decades".

The OECD is made up of the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States.

Reported by Ben Haynes