Pupils dreading the prospect of what must seem like years of schooling stretching ahead of them might like to convince their parents of the need for an imminent move to Portugal, where students complete on average just 8.5 years of formal education.

This compares with 13.9 years in Norway, which registers the lengthiest educations, according to a survey of the 30 members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Our graphic shows the average years of successfully completed formal education in a sample of OECD countries. Across the member countries there has also been a significant increase in the number of women completing upper secondary education – almost 80 per cent in the case of the 24 to 34 age group, compared with only 63 per cent of women aged 45 to 54.

Source: OECD, 2004 (updated 2009)