United Kingdom - Pupil-teacher ratio, primary

Pupil-teacher ratio, primary in United Kingdom was 15.13 as of 2017. Its highest value over the past 46 years was 23.33 in 1971, while its lowest value was 15.05 in 2016.

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
1971 23.33
1972 22.64
1973 21.72
1974 21.09
1975 20.55
1976 20.03
1977 20.11
1978 19.94
1979 19.37
1980 18.99
1982 18.72
1983 18.26
1984 17.98
1985 17.52
1987 20.29
1988 20.33
1989 19.62
1990 19.68
1991 19.78
1992 19.81
1999 18.69
2000 18.66
2001 17.59
2002 17.18
2003 17.10
2004 18.09
2005 17.47
2006 18.08
2007 17.24
2008 18.27
2009 17.96
2010 17.53
2011 17.27
2012 18.31
2013 18.44
2014 16.55
2016 15.05
2017 15.13

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