Hello, this is the Global News podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson with your weekly bonus from The Global Story, which brings you a single story with depth and insight from the BBC's best journalists. There's a new episode every weekday. Just search for the global story wherever you get your pods and be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a single episode.

Here's my colleague, Lucy Hawkins.

A good education can make us richer, healthier and help us to thrive.

And governments around the world compete in global rankings to see which nation is deemed to have the best school system in the world.

Our main responsibility is to nurture the students in such way that they will be ready for the future to become productive citizens of tomorrow.

Asian schools often get the best results, with some Nordic countries also highly praised.

But in many parts of the world, there are often huge barriers to getting children into the classroom at all.

It's cruel not to open schools for girls.

We have as much right to learn as boys do.

It would be cruel of the Taliban not to allow us to return to our schools.

So what does the best school system in the world look like,

and which country educates its children best?

With me today in the Global Story Studio is Sean Cochland.

Some of you will have heard Sean and I talking already on the global

story about the UK royal family as he's one of our royal correspondence. But before that, Sean,

for many years, you were one of our education correspondence and you led BBC news coverage

of what we're going to talk about today, which is a global education. So welcome. Thank you.

Good to see you again. And also joining us today is John Jerram, who is a global education. So welcome. Thank you. Good to see you again. And also

joining us today is John Jerem, who's a professor at University College London's Institute of Education.

And John has dug deep into the global data about different education systems around the world and is here to reveal all.

Hi, John. Hi. So we're going to talk about education, but we thought perhaps a

good place to start is about how it's shaped our lives. How do you feel, Sean, education

...