The BRICS countries’ educational landscape, UN expectations of when the world’s population will peak, the world’s best universities according to Nature.
The school education systems of the BRICS countries occupy approximately a third of the global educational space. The approaches taken by the member states set trends for developing economies worldwide, as stated in the first study on development of education in BRICS countries. The report was prepared by the BRICS Expert Council–Russia and the Institute of Education at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE).
The report Transformation of General Education in BRICS Countries focuses particularly on how these countries are shaping their own strategic priorities in education without just borrowing external models.
For example, India is seeking a balance between modern labour market demand and Vedic knowledge traditions. In South Africa, educational policy is aimed at overcoming the legacy of segregation. In Brazil, the focus is on recognizing diversity as a value while, in China and Russia, efforts are directed at equalizing conditions and improving access to quality education in remote regions.
UN experts have refined country population projections up to 2100. They forecast that India and China will remain global leaders, but China is expected to experience a more than twofold population decline. This is attributed to low fertility rates (<1.5 children per woman) and limited labour migration (foreigners accounted for only 0.07% of China’s total population in 2023).
Among BRICS+ members, India, China, Ethiopia, and Indonesia will remain in the Top 10 most populous countries by the turn of the century. Russia and Brazil might drop out of the Top 10.
Over the next 50–60 years, the global population will continue to grow from the current 8.2 billion. According to the latest data, the population is expected to peak in the mid-2080s at 10.3 billion. After this, growth will come to a halt and, by 2100, the global population will fall slightly to 10.2 billion. The UN experts’ revision of their previous forecast is based on data showing declining fertility rates in some of the world’s largest countries, particularly China.
The Top 10 research universities in the world, according to the journal Nature, include Harvard (USA) and nine Chinese institutions.
According to the Nature Index ranking from March 2024 to February 2025, China is the world leader in scientific research. The country scored the highest in two key metrics: the number of articles (Count) and the share of contributions to publications (Share, the percentage of authors from a specific country).
