European Union - Pupil-teacher ratio, primary

Pupil-teacher ratio, primary in European Union was 13.30 as of 2018. Its highest value over the past 48 years was 19.87 in 1971, while its lowest value was 13.07 in 2011.

Definition: Primary school pupil-teacher ratio is the average number of pupils per teacher in primary school.

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics (http://uis.unesco.org/)

See also:

Year Value
1970 19.78
1971 19.87
1972 19.63
1973 19.46
1974 19.27
1975 19.07
1976 19.01
1977 18.75
1978 18.58
1979 18.33
1980 18.09
1981 17.93
1982 17.74
1983 17.53
1984 17.31
1985 17.01
1986 16.81
1987 16.85
1988 16.67
1989 16.44
1990 16.15
1991 15.77
1992 15.59
1993 15.28
1994 14.99
1995 15.25
1996 15.20
1997 15.11
1998 15.13
1999 14.98
2000 14.59
2001 14.28
2002 14.11
2003 14.12
2004 14.11
2005 13.85
2006 13.77
2007 13.49
2008 13.42
2009 13.28
2010 13.08
2011 13.07
2012 13.29
2013 13.61
2014 13.54
2015 13.40
2016 13.16
2017 13.31
2018 13.30

Development Relevance: The pupil-teacher ratio is often used to compare the quality of schooling across countries, but it is often weakly related to student learning and quality of education.

Limitations and Exceptions: The comparability of pupil-teacher ratios across countries is affected by the definition of teachers and by differences in class size by grade and in the number of hours taught, as well as the different practices countries employ such as part-time teachers, school shifts, and multi-grade classes. Moreover, the underlying enrollment levels are subject to a variety of reporting errors.

Other Notes: Data retrieved via API in March 2019. For detailed information on the observation level (e.g. National Estimation, UIS Estimation, or Category not applicable), please visit UIS.Stat (http://data.uis.unesco.org/).

Statistical Concept and Methodology: Pupil-teacher ratio is calculated by dividing the number of students at the specified level of education by the number of teachers at the same level of education. Data on education are collected by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics from official responses to its annual education survey. All the data are mapped to the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) to ensure the comparability of education programs at the international level. The current version was formally adopted by UNESCO Member States in 2011. The reference years reflect the school year for which the data are presented. In some countries the school year spans two calendar years (for example, from September 2010 to June 2011); in these cases the reference year refers to the year in which the school year ended (2011 in the example).

Aggregation method: Weighted average

Periodicity: Annual

Classification

Topic: Education Indicators

Sub-Topic: Inputs