Compulsory education: from what age to what age — and whose duty is it
How the world celebratesTaiwan's Compulsory Education Act sets six to fifteen, nine years, and leaves compulsory enrolment itself to a separate statute. Brazil's Article 208, as amended in 2009, runs from four to seventeen — the widest span of the seven. India's Article 21A covers six to fourteen and sits in the Part on fundamental rights, so it can be taken to court. Indonesia's Article 31(2) puts the duty on both sides at once: the citizen must attend basic education and the government must pay for it, with a further clause reserving at least twenty per cent of the budget for education. Japan's Article 26 places the duty on parents. China's Article 46 makes education a right and a duty in the same sentence. The United States has no federal rule at all: each state sets its own start and end ages.
Quick answers
| Place | When is it? | How the date is set |
|---|---|---|
| United States | Date to be confirmed | Year-round |
| Brazil | Date to be confirmed | Year-round |
| China | Date to be confirmed | Year-round |
| Indonesia | Date to be confirmed | Year-round |
| India | Date to be confirmed | Year-round |
| Japan | Date to be confirmed | Year-round |
| Taiwan | Date to be confirmed | Year-round |
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How the world celebrates
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How does Brazil mark Compulsory education: from what age to what age — and whose duty is it?
Brazil's compulsory span is the widest of the seven. Article 208(I) of the constitution, in the wording given by the 59th amendment of 2009, provides that basic education from four to seventeen years of age shall be obligatory and free, with free provision guaranteed also to those who did not have access at the proper age. Fourteen years — beginning earlier than any of the other six (at four, already inside pre-school) and ending later than most (at seventeen, covering all of secondary). The opening of the article is worth noticing too: the subject of Article 208 is the duty of the State towards education, and the article lists what the State must guarantee in order to discharge that duty. Brazil's formulation is therefore neither "the citizen has a duty" (China) nor "the parent has a duty" (Japan) but the State has a duty, and the content of the duty is enumerated item by item. That structure turns compulsory education in Brazil into a checkable list of state obligations rather than merely a span of years.
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How does China mark Compulsory education: from what age to what age — and whose duty is it?
Article 46 of China's constitution is a single sentence: citizens of the People's Republic of China have the right and the duty to receive education. Putting both on the same subject in the same sentence is unique among these seven markets — elsewhere the right and the duty are split into separate clauses (as in Japan's Article 26) or only one side is written down. The second paragraph continues that the state fosters the all-round development of young people, adolescents and children in morality, intelligence and physique — casting the state's role as fostering rather than providing. Neither the number of years nor the machinery of compulsory schooling appears in the constitution; the constitution only says, in Article 19, that the state universalises primary compulsory education, and that same article also covers secondary, vocational and higher education and the elimination of illiteracy. China's constitution, in other words, treats education as a national undertaking taken whole, of which the citizen's right and duty is one facet — rather than carving out a separately justiciable fundamental right as India does.
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How does Indonesia mark Compulsory education: from what age to what age — and whose duty is it?
Article 31 of Indonesia's constitution puts the duty on both sides, and that is what makes it distinctive. Clause (1): every citizen has the right to education. Clause (2): every citizen is obliged to attend basic education, and the government is obliged to fund it. In one sentence the duty falls on the people and on the state at once — where most of the other markets write only one side (Japan names the parent, China the citizen, India commands the State to provide). Clause (3) requires the government to run a national education system that raises faith, piety and noble character, as regulated by statute. Clause (4) is a rarely seen kind of constitutional provision: the state shall prioritise education in the budget, at no less than twenty per cent. Writing a specific budget share into the constitution means the matter was deliberately designed to be beyond the reach of annual political bargaining — not a declaration that education matters, but a number that can be audited. That sets Indonesia apart: the other six constitutions, when they speak of education, speak of years, of rights, of duties. Indonesia's speaks of money.
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How does India mark Compulsory education: from what age to what age — and whose duty is it?
India writes compulsory education into the Part on fundamental rights — the sharpest difference from the other six markets. Article 21A: the State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of six to fourteen years in such manner as the State may, by law, determine. It sits immediately after Article 21 on life and personal liberty, in Part III, and the provisions of Part III can be taken to court. By contrast, when the same constitution handles care and education for children under six, in Article 45, the wording is that the State shall *endeavour* to provide it — and that article is in Part IV, of which Article 37 says expressly that no court may enforce it. The same subject, one age band apart, and justiciable parts company with non-justiciable. The structure came about later: Article 21A was inserted by amendment, lifting a promise about education out of the directive principles and into the set of rights that can actually be claimed.
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How does Japan mark Compulsory education: from what age to what age — and whose duty is it?
Article 26 of Japan's constitution places the duty not on the child but on the parent. Clause 1 states the right — all people shall have the right to receive an equal education correspondent to their ability, as provided by law — and clause 2 continues: all people shall be obligated to have all boys and girls under their protection receive ordinary education as provided for by law; such compulsory education shall be free. The duty in the Japanese phrase for compulsory education is therefore not a duty to receive education but a duty to have it received. That choice of subject stands out among these seven markets. China puts both the right and the duty on the citizen in a single sentence; Indonesia puts the duty on citizen and government at once; India commands the State to provide. Japan puts it on the guardian — and then adds that such education shall be free, so the state carries the cost of the obligation it has imposed.
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How does Taiwan mark Compulsory education: from what age to what age — and whose duty is it?
Taiwan's compulsory schooling sits in Article 3 of the Compulsory Education Act: citizens aged six to fifteen shall receive national education, and compulsory enrolment shall be prescribed by separate legislation. Nine years; Article 4 then splits them into six years of primary and three of junior high. The half-sentence about separate legislation is worth pausing on — the statute first declares that education must be received, then hands how to compel it to another law entirely. Splitting the duty from the machinery of enforcement across two statutes is unusual among these seven markets: most either state only the ages (Brazil, India) or attach the duty to a named party (parents in Japan, the citizen himself in China). Article 5 adds that national education is to be provided by government as a rule, with private provision encouraged, and Article 6 deals with experimental education — so the same act simultaneously preserves "you must be schooled" and "you need not be in a conventional school", the latter picked up by two separate ordinances on experimental education.
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How does United States mark Compulsory education: from what age to what age — and whose duty is it?
Nothing in the United States constitution addresses education, and the federal government sets no compulsory schooling ages — the whole matter is left to the states. The comparison table maintained by the National Center for Education Statistics lays the variation out: the age at which attendance becomes required is five in some states, six in others, seven in others still; the age at which it ends is sixteen, seventeen or eighteen depending on the state; and the age to which free education must be *offered* is a separate set of numbers again, running to twenty or twenty-one in many places. Within one federation, then, a seven-year-old is not yet obliged to be in school in one state and is two years late in another. The difference from the other six markets is not the length of the obligation but that there is no national answer to quote: any sentence beginning "compulsory education in America runs from age X to Y" has to name a state first. It is also why the American cell in any cross-country comparison of schooling years is a range rather than a number.
Sources and dates
Dates follow local time zones, calendars, and official notices. Check the source when a date is estimated or locally variable.