In the project, we prepare an expertise for the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research in which we deal with the most important longitudinal studies on the course of education in a number of selected European and North American countries (France, Great Britain, The Netherlands, Sweden, Canada, and the United States). Three aspects are of central relevance to this expertise: (1) to provide a detailed overview on relevant longitudinal studies (i.e. content, design, implementation), (2) to show how these studies are used for national educational reporting in these countries, and (3) based on this inventory to give recommendations for setting up a system of educational reporting in Germany.