Background information on education statistics in the UIS Data Centre

Background information on education statistics in the UIS Data Centre

The following symbols are used:

…                   No data available

^*                                  National estimation

^**                                UIS estimation

For regional averages: Partial imputation due to incomplete country coverage (between 33% to 60% of population)

-                      Magnitude nil or negligible

.                Not applicable

Data releases

The UIS releases data on its website concerning formal education systems three times every year – in January, May and October. Stay informed of the latest data releases by signing up for the UIS email alert service at www.uis.unesco.org.

Data sources

The UIS collects education statistics in aggregate form from official administrative sources at the national level. Collected information encompasses data on educational programmes, access, participation, progression, completion, internal efficiency and human and financial resources. These statistics cover formal education in public (or state) and private institutions (pre-primary, primary, basic and secondary schools, and colleges, universities and other tertiary education institutions); and special needs education (both in regular and special schools).

These data are gathered annually by the UIS and its partner agencies through the following three major surveys that can be downloaded from the UIS website at www.uis.unesco.org/UISQuestionnaires

i)     UIS survey

The UIS education questionnaires are sent to UNESCO Member States annually. The questionnaires are based on international standards, classifications and measures that are regularly reviewed and modified by the UIS in order to address emerging statistical issues and improve the quality of data.

ii)    UOE survey

UNESCO-UIS, the OECD and Eurostat (UOE) have jointly administered this annual data collection since 1993. The UOE questionnaire compiles data from high- and middle-income countries that are generally members

or partner countries of the OECD or Eurostat. The UOE survey gathers more detailed education statistics.

iii)   World Education Indicators (WEI) programme

The WEI programme provides a platform for middle-income countries to develop a critical mass of policy-relevant education indicators beyond the global core set of education statistics. This also allows for direct comparisons to countries participating in the UOE survey. The collection of data from WEI countries is based on a common set of definitions, instructions and methods that were derived from the OECD Indicators of National Education Systems (INES) programme.

Participating countries in the WEI data collection are Argentina, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Jordan, Malaysia, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Uruguay.

Population estimates

Population data are based on the 2012 revision of the World Population Prospects by the United Nations Population Division (UNPD). The UNPD does not provide data by single year of age for countries with a total population of less than 50,000 inhabitants. Where UNPD estimates are not available, national data or UIS estimates are used.

For more information on UNPD estimates, please visit http://www.un.org/esa/population/unpop.htm

Economic statistics

Data on economic indicators such as Gross domestic product (GDP) and Purchasing power parity (PPP) are World Bank estimates as of December 2013. For countries where GDP estimates are not published by the World Bank, data are obtained from the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD).

Technical notes

A. Education data and indicators

Regional averages are based on both publishable data and on non publishable estimated or imputed data. They are calculated based on data of April 2013.

There are cases where an indicator theoretically should not exceed the maximum value (for example the adjusted net enrolment rate), but data inconsistencies may have resulted in the indicator exceeding the theoretical limit. In these cases, “capping” has been applied, while maintaining the same gender ratio (For more details, please find the capping definition in the online glossary http://glossary.uis.unesco.org/glossary/en/home).

Due to rounding, Gender parity indices (GPI) may differ from those based directly on reported values.

The percentage of females (% F) is included to provide information on the proportion of girls enrolled with respect to the total enrolment. For gender parity, a more relevant measure is the GPI.

Two Special Administrative Regions – Hong Kong and Macao – are reported separately from data for China.

Data on pre-vocational or pre-technical programmes: Data for pre-vocational programmes for ISCED levels 2, 3 and 4 for countries carrying out the UIS regular education survey are included in those for general programmes. For countries carrying out the WEI/UOE survey, data for pre-vocational programmes for these ISCED levels are included in those of technical/vocational programmes. Therefore, data users are kindly requested to take this into account when comparing data by type of orientation for the two groups of countries.

Adult education: Educational programmes that are specifically designed for adults are not within the scope of the UIS regular data collection. These programmes are covered by the WEI/UOE data collection but countries are requested to report enrolment data for these programmes separately. To ensure comparability of enrolment data and the related indicators for all countries, adult education data are removed from data published by UIS for all WEI/UOE countries which provide appropriate breakdown of enrolment data. However, adult education data may still be included for few countries, which may slightly affect the comparability of their enrolment data and indicators with the rest of countries.

B. Education finance

Expenditure on pre-primary education or from international sources – both of which are often comparatively small – have been treated as negligible in cases where data were in fact missing. In these cases, the totals may be underestimated.

C. Population issues

Azerbaijan: Education data do not cover the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, whereas UNPD data do. Therefore the population data used for the calculation of indicators were provided by national authorities and exclude Nagorno-Karabakh.

Cyprus: Enrolment data for Cyprus do not include schools that are not under government control. The population data used for the calculation of indicators were provided by the government of Cyprus and only cover the population living in the government-controlled area.

Republic of Moldova: Enrolment data do not cover the region of Transnistria and population data for this region were excluded when calculating population-based indicators.

Palestine: Enrolment data do not include data for East Jerusalem, whereas the population data do. Indicators are not internationally comparable and should be interpreted with caution.

Serbia: Education data do not cover Kosovo, whereas the UN population division data do. Therefore, the population data used for the calculation of indicators were provided by Eurostat and exclude Kosovo.

United Republic of Tanzania: Enrolment data do not include Zanzibar, whereas the population data do. The population of Zanzibar is approximately 3 per cent of the total population of Tanzania. Indicators should thus be interpreted with caution.