Korea has the highest rate of high school graduates, and also ranked high in spending on public education among OECD members, according to a data from the organization.

Nearly 98 percent of Koreans aged 25-34 have completed high school, putting the country at the top for this age group among the 34 OECD member countries, ahead of Czech Republic and Slovak Republic, each with a 94 percent attainment rate, according to the organization’s 2012 edition of “Education at a Glance” released on Tuesday.

Korea’s public spending on primary and secondary education, between 2000 and 2009, has increased more than two-fold to 8 percent of GDP, higher than the average 6.3 percent of GDP among the OECD countries, according to data.

The OECD’s “Education at a Glance”, an annual survey, was conducted on 42 countries―34 OECD countries plus eight non-member countries, based on statistics in 2010.

This year’s report includes new indicators on early childhood education and care, inequality in education and how a parent’s education influences their child’s academic attainment.

The report said on average across OECD countries, a young person with at least one parent who has attained a tertiary degree is almost twice as likely to be in higher education, compared to young people from families with low levels of education.

And the results of the most recent PISA, program for international student assessment, show that students with parents from a low education background have poor reading skills.

But in contrast, Korean students that have mothers with low education levels and higher education background showed the narrowest margin, receiving average 504 points and average 555 points respectively on the reading test.

By Oh Kyu-wook (596story@heraldcorp.com)