The bar graph illustrates how the average number of students per classroom in primary and lower secondary schools varied around the world in 2006.
In general, it is noticeable that South Korea had the largest average class size among 6 surveyed countries and the world in general, while an average classroom in Iceland contained the least amount of students. In addition, classes in the UK and Mexico recorded the largest differences in average class size between primary schools and lower secondary schools.
Classes in South Korea, regardless of the grades, included 34 to 36 students, which was the highest in the world at that time. This was followed by Japan, where a class in lower secondary schools could contain about 35 pupils, 5 individuals more than primary class size. The same thing can be seen in Mexico as there were 30 pupils in a lower secondary class, compared to just 20 students in primary class.
In contrast, the UK, Denmark and Iceland were the 3 countries with primary schools’ average class size bigger than that of lower secondary ones. However, the gap of size between primary and lower secondary classes in the UK was more significant with the disparity of 10 students, compared to only 1 or 2 pupils in the 2 other countries. Figures for Denmark and Iceland were quite similar, fluctuating at around 21 students for primary schools and 20 for lower secondary schools. Regarding the average size in the world, there were about 25 and 28 students in primary and lower secondary classes, respectively.