World - Pupil-teacher ratio, lower secondary

Pupil-teacher ratio, lower secondary in World was 16.87 as of 2018. Its highest value over the past 25 years was 18.94 in 2003, while its lowest value was 16.78 in 2017.

Definition: Lower secondary school pupil-teacher ratio is the average number of pupils per teacher in lower secondary school.

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

See also:

Year Value
1993 17.34
1994 17.70
1995 18.04
1996 18.61
1997 18.59
1998 18.11
1999 18.56
2000 18.65
2001 18.83
2002 18.76
2003 18.94
2004 18.91
2005 18.61
2006 18.31
2007 18.18
2008 17.84
2009 17.55
2010 17.62
2011 17.79
2012 17.86
2013 17.48
2014 17.37
2015 17.26
2016 16.90
2017 16.78
2018 16.87

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