Students in OECD countries and economies receive an average of 7,604 hours of compulsory instruction during their primary and lower secondary education.

However, as Statista's Anna Fleck shows in the chart below, a wide gap exists between countries, with students in Poland receiving an average of just 5,304 hours, compared to Australia where children must attend nearly double that at 11,000 hours.

In the United States, children spend 8,917 hours on average in compulsory classes across primary school and early secondary school.

This is according to a new report by the OECD titled Education at a Glance.

Primary education lasts six years on average across OECD countries and economies, ranging from four grades in Poland to seven in Australia and Denmark.

In the U.S., children have six school years at the primary level.

Lower secondary education lasts three years on average across the OECD member states, ranging from two years in the French Community of Belgium to six years in Lithuania.

Poster Comment:

Like to see those kids pass a test. I saw a documentary once of an American reporter who went to the best academic school in his area and did the same in Germany. (This was before Merkel ruined Germany with all the illegal aliens.) Then he asked to interview one student in the vocational training department, not a kid studying to get into university. In America he interviewed a Black kid who was flipping burgers at McDonalds. The school the Black kid was being prepared to enter the work force.

In Germany the German kid was preparing to become a machinist. The class had $5 million (20 years ago) in machine tools donated by BMW. The kid hated school, but he was taking calculus, physics, computer programming and sufficient English to be fluent enough for an interview. On that day the teacher had put a bug in his numerical machine tool which he had to find and correct so he could get his machine running.

American academic students could not have done what that voc ed student in Germany did.