South Asia - Pupil-teacher ratio, primary

Pupil-teacher ratio, primary in South Asia was 33.25 as of 2018. Its highest value over the past 48 years was 42.68 in 1981, while its lowest value was 32.72 in 2015.

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 41.18
1971 40.85
1972 41.24
1973 42.46
1974 42.65
1975 42.10
1976 42.21
1977 42.23
1978 41.92
1979 42.12
1980 42.65
1981 42.68
1982 42.44
1983 42.06
1984 41.66
1985 41.62
1986 41.62
1987 41.63
1988 42.23
1989 42.26
1990 42.35
1991 42.14
1992 41.94
1993 41.69
1994 41.51
1995 41.25
1996 40.95
1997 40.61
1998 40.30
1999 40.05
2000 39.88
2001 40.16
2002 40.74
2003 41.01
2004 40.99
2005 40.78
2006 40.63
2007 40.33
2008 39.31
2009 38.23
2010 37.15
2011 35.85
2012 35.80
2013 33.49
2014 32.79
2015 32.72
2016 35.55
2017 33.25
2018 33.25

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