Contents of the dataset on country/macro level includes nine variables considering school and education system characteristics as well as country characteristics: number of school types/tracks for 9th grade/15-year-olds; age at first selection; preschool obligation; compulsory school years/education years (with pre-primary school); government expenditure on education, total (% of GDP); mean years of schooling; Human Development Index (HDI); Gender Inequality Index (GII); women’s share of seats in parliament (in %) The data set contains information on 82 countries and regions that participated in the PISA study. Most of the data are for the school year period of 2017/18, however older and newer data is used as well if other sources were not available. The documents used to create the dataset (including European Commisssion, OECD, education ministries) can be found in the reference list in the excel file and can be requested from the author.