Indicator 4.1.2 Completion rate (primary education, lower secondary education, upper secondary education)

Indicator 4.1.2: Completion rate (primary education, lower secondary education, upper secondary education)

Target 4.1: By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes

UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)

Definition:

Percentage of a cohort of children or young people aged 3-5 years above the intended age for the last grade of each level of education who have completed that grade.

Concepts:

The intended age for the last grade of each level of education is the age at which pupils would enter the grade if they had started school at the official primary entrance age, had studied full-time and had progressed without repeating or skipping a grade.

For example, if the official age of entry into primary education is 6 years, and if primary education has 6 grades, the intended age for the last grade of primary education is 11 years. In this case, 14-16 years (11 + 3 = 14 and 11 + 5 = 16) would be the reference age group for calculation of the primary completion rate.

Percent (%)

The data can be obtained from population censuses and household surveys that collect information on the highest level of education and/or grade completed by children and young people in a household. Typical questions in a survey to collect data on educational attainment are:

- What is the highest level of education [name of household member] has attended?

- What is the highest grade of education [name of household member] has completed at that level?

Sources include publicly available data from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS), European Union Statistics on Income and Living Condition (EU-SILC), the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS), and national household surveys and censuses.

Household survey and census datasets are publicly available from the sources described above and national statistical agencies.

Three common issues affect the indicator. First, the age group 3-5 years above the official age of entry into the last grade for a given level of education was selected for the calculation of the completion rate to allow for some delayed entry or repetition. In countries where entry can occur very late or where repetition is common, some children or adolescents in the age group examined may still attend school and the eventual rate of completion may therefore be underestimated. Second, as the indicator is calculated from household survey data, it is subject to time lag in the availability of data. Third, when multiple surveys are available, they may provide conflicting information due to the possible presence of sampling and non-sampling errors in survey data.

Responding to a request by the Technical Cooperation Group (TCG) on the Indicators for SDG 4 - Education 2030, a refinement of the methodology to model completion rate estimates has been developed (Barakat et al. 2021), following an approach similar to that used for the estimation of child mortality rates. The model ensures that these common challenges with household survey data, such as timeliness and sampling or non-sampling errors are addressed to provide annual, up-to-date (through short-term projections) and more robust data, including for children and youth who complete each level later than 3-5 years above the official age of entry into the last grade.

The number of persons in the relevant age group who have completed the last grade of a given level of education is divided by the total population (in the survey sample) of the same age group.

Formula:

${CR}_n=\frac{P_{C_n,{AG}_{a+3t5}}}{P_{{AG}_{a+3t5}}}$

where:

${CR}_n=$ completion rate for level n of education

$P_{C_n,{Age}_{a+3t5}}=$ population aged 3 to 5 years above the official entrance age a into the last grade of level n of education who completed level n

$P_{{Age}_{a+3t5}}=$ population aged 3 to 5 years above the official entrance age a into the last grade of level n of education

$n=\mathrm{\ }$ISCED level 1 (primary education), 2 (lower secondary education), or 3 (upper secondary education)

2022-03-31

UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)

4.1.1