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Gross enrolment ratio in primary education

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Global Education

What you should know about this indicator

  • Not all students enrol in school at the same age. The gross enrolment ratio includes students enrolled in a certain level of education, regardless of whether they are within the expected age range for that level. It includes students who are younger or older than expected due to late entry, early entry, or grade repetition.
  • It captures the total number of students enrolled at a specific education level, expressed as a percentage of the population in the official age group for that level. For example, if the official age group for upper secondary school is 15 to 17-year olds, the gross enrolment ratio compares total enrolment at that level (of any age) to the population of 15- to 17-year-olds.
  • Values can be greater than 100% if students repeat grades or start a particular level of schooling late. In the example above, some 18- or 19 year olds might be included in the total if they started upper secondary school late.
  • Similarly, a value of 100% does not necessarily mean all children within a particular age group are enrolled in school; some children could be out-of-school, but gross enrolment rates are boosted by older students being included.
  • The data comes from administrative records, such as school enrolment reports, and from population estimates, usually provided by the United Nations or national sources.

Total enrollment in primary education, regardless of age, expressed as a percentage of the population of official primary education age. GER can exceed 100% due to the inclusion of over-aged and under-aged students because of early or late school entrance and grade repetition.

Gross enrolment ratio in primary education
Number of children of any age group who are enrolled in education, expressed as a percentage of the total population of the official primary school age.
Source
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2025) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
May 1, 2025
Next expected update
May 2026
Date range
1970–2024
Unit
%

Explore charts that include this data

Primary, secondary and tertiary education enrolment and completion rates

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) is the official and trusted source of internationally-comparable data on education, science, culture and communication. As the official statistical agency of UNESCO, the UIS produces a wide range of state-of-the-art databases to fuel the policies and investments needed to transform lives and propel the world towards its development goals. The UIS provides free access to data for all UNESCO countries and regional groupings from 1970 to the most recent year available.

Retrieved on
May 1, 2025
Retrieved from
https://databrowser.uis.unesco.org/resources/bulk
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), Education, https://uis.unesco.org/bdds, 2025

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Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Gross enrolment ratio in primary education”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Veronika Samborska, Natasha Ahuja, Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, and Max Roser (2023) - “Global Education”. Data adapted from UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gross-enrollment-ratio-in-primary-education [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2025) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2025) – processed by Our World in Data. “Gross enrolment ratio in primary education” [dataset]. UNESCO Institute for Statistics, “UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) - Education” [original data]. Retrieved June 14, 2025 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gross-enrollment-ratio-in-primary-education