The countries best prepared for the shift to online education

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E-Learning Index 2021: The Best & Worst Countries for Digital Education

One year after publishing our first e-learning index which ranked the 32 countries best prepared for the shift to online learning, Preply is excited to share an updated report that includes fascinating new data and insights around continued adoption.

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Since the onset of COVID-19, the demand for digital learning opportunities has skyrocketed across the globe. Prior to the pandemic, Preply’s platform held more than two million lessons taught by 10,000 tutors. By March 2021, we had 10 million lessons (5x) from 40,000 tutors (4x) across 190 countries.

The US & UK Significantly Improve

Both countries are now among the top five countries for e-learning. The USA gained ten positions, climbing from 12th to 2nd place, while the UK jumped an impressive 12 positions, landing in 4th place overall. Both countries can attribute their success to dramatically increasing the number of courses that can be completed entirely online. In the UK, nearly 10,600 degree programs are now available via distance learning compared to only ~4,300 in 2020. In the USA, the number of courses grew by 13%.

Denmark Wins Top Prize

The best conditions in the world for effective e-learning can be found in Denmark, which replaces last year’s winner, Norway, which took a steep drop to #9 on our list.

Ireland Takes Last Place

Replacing Mexico for the least-equipped country for online learning, Ireland comes in last place this year due to its expensive Internet costs, relatively unaffordable tutoring and small public education budget, all of which affect its digital education offering.

For a more detailed comparison check out the full 2020 and 2021 E-Learning Indexes.

The E-Learning Index 2021

In order to compare the conditions for effective e-learning among countries across the globe, we selected particularly meaningful factors, just as we did last year, and analyzed data from reputable studies, as well as from our own internal data. The findings were then compared to produce the following ranking of countries that offer the best conditions for successful e-learning.

Access to computers – Percentage of the total population with access to a private computer, in %

Distance learning courses – the range of study programmes and courses that can be carried out and completed entirely online.

Education expenditure – Share of gross domestic product per capita which the state spends on tertiary education, in %

Broadband internet speed – Average download speed over broadband, in Mbps

Mobile internet speed – Average download speed over mobile data, in Mbit/s

Costs – Average monthly cost of broadband Internet access, in US$ and GBP

Tutoring wage – Average wage per hour of a tutor, in US dollars and pounds

Market volume – Total number of enrolled students, pupils in primary and secondary education and preschoolers.

Market growth – Based on internal data from Preply, standardised comparison data from 0-100.

E-learning Index 2020

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Methodology

In order to examine different countries for their potential for digital learning and e-learning, all member states of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Brazil and Russia were analysed for a selection of influencing factors in the fields of investigation "Accessibility to online education", "Internet availability" and "E-learning Climate".

Due to lack of data and in order to ensure comparability, the OECD member states Colombia, Iceland, Korea, Lithuania, Latvia, Israel and Slovenia could not be included in the analysis. All influencing factors contribute equally to the final result. All data were collected on July 21, 2021.

Calculation

In order to be able to compare the results of all the countries examined, the results were standardised on a scale from 0 to 100. The country with the greatest potential for e-learning in the respective influencing factor received a score of 100. The country with the smallest potential for e-learning in the respective influencing factor received a score of 0. The score of all other countries was ranked between 0 and 100 relative to their results. The final result of a field of investigation was the sum of the points of all influencing factors in the respective field of investigation.

For example, the evaluation result for the first field of investigation was a sum of the standardised results of the factors: "computer access", "distance learning" and "public expenditure on education".

The final result was the sum of the scores of the all three fields, which were also standardised on a scale of 0 to 100 to calculate the final ranking.
The following normalization formula was used for the standardization: