World - Pupil-teacher ratio, primary

Pupil-teacher ratio, primary in World was 23.45 as of 2018. Its highest value over the past 48 years was 28.73 in 1977, while its lowest value was 23.11 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 28.11
1971 28.24
1972 27.84
1973 28.36
1974 28.48
1975 28.62
1976 28.63
1977 28.73
1978 28.57
1979 28.60
1980 28.35
1981 28.16
1982 27.80
1983 27.43
1984 27.23
1985 27.14
1986 26.93
1987 26.83
1988 26.68
1989 26.25
1990 26.22
1991 26.16
1992 26.13
1993 26.13
1994 26.21
1995 26.30
1996 26.31
1997 26.47
1998 26.61
1999 26.55
2000 26.31
2001 26.02
2002 25.82
2003 25.26
2004 25.39
2005 25.25
2006 25.14
2007 25.05
2008 24.97
2009 24.68
2010 24.31
2011 24.12
2012 24.20
2013 23.55
2014 23.29
2015 23.11
2016 23.44
2017 23.39
2018 23.45

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