The bar graph above illustrates the average number of students per class in elementary and middle schools among six countries compared to the world average, recorded in 2006.
Overall, South Korea took the lead with impressively high numbers while Iceland lagged behind in both the number of pupils for each class in primary and junior high school. Remarkably, the UK and Mexico had substantial differences in the mean number of learners in both survey categories.
With respect to grade education, South Korea overshadowed other countries and became the country with the highest average number of pupils per class with approximately 35 children, followed by Japan and the UK, about 30 and 27 respectively. In contrast, the typical size of primary classes in Mexico, Denmark, and Iceland were all below the global average; however, Mexico had the lowest position with only 20 pupils.
Regarding lower secondary school, South Korea continued to hold the highest position with 35 students while Japan is just behind with a number nearly equal to Korea. In addition, there were 30 children per class in Mexican schools; the average middle school class size in Denmark and Iceland were almost the same at nearly 20 students. The UK possessed the smallest size class for this school with merely 18 learners.