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Share of primary schools with toilets

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Global Education

What you should know about this indicator

  • Access to separate toilets for girls and boys is essential for dignity, privacy, and hygiene — this indicator shows how many primary schools provide this basic facility.
  • It measures the proportion of primary schools with basic sanitation facilities that are single-sex, meaning there are separate, usable toilets for male and female students on site.
  • Basic sanitation facilities include functional and private toilets that hygienically separate human waste from human contact and are not shared with other buildings or the public.
  • A high percentage indicates better readiness of the school system to provide a safe and inclusive learning environment, especially for girls, who may be more likely to miss school without such facilities.
  • The data is typically collected through national school censuses or Education Management Information Systems (EMIS) and is reported by school officials.
  • Disaggregating this indicator by urban/rural location, region, or public/private management can help identify disparities in access to gender-sensitive school infrastructure.
  • Some limitations include potential discrepancies in how countries define or report "usable" or "functional" toilets, and whether cleanliness, maintenance, or disability access are accounted for.

Percentage of schools by level of education (primary, lower secondary and upper secondary education) with access to the given facility or service. The value is calculated as the number of schools in a given level of education with access to the relevant facilities expressed as a percentage of all schools at that level of education. Basic sanitation facilities are defined as functional improved sanitation facilities separated for males and females on or near the premises. Improved sanitation facilities include a pit latrine with slab, a ventilated improved pit latrine, a flush toilet, a pour-flush toilet or a composting toilet. Unimproved facilities include a pit latrine without a slab, hanging toilets and bucket toilets. For more information, consult the UNESCO Institute of Statistics website: http://www.uis.unesco.org/Education/

Share of primary schools with toilets
Percentage of that have access to single-sex basic sanitation facilities, as defined by international standards.
Source
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2025) – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
May 1, 2025
Next expected update
May 2026
Date range
1999–2024
Unit
%

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

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

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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: Share of primary schools with toilets”, 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/percentage-of-primary-schools-with-toilets [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) – with minor processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2025) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Share of primary schools with toilets” [dataset]. UNESCO Institute for Statistics, “UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) - Education” [original data]. Retrieved June 14, 2025 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/percentage-of-primary-schools-with-toilets