School life expectancy

The school life expectancy is the number of years a person of school entrance age can expect to spend in school. This indicator combines information on enrollment rates in primary and secondary education and can therefore be used to compare countries with different lengths of primary or secondary school. In addition, this indicator compensates for late entry into the education system. One limitation is that years spent repeating a grade also count as years spent in school. In countries where repetition rates are high the school life expectancy can therefore be inflated.

School life expectancy in years, primary to secondary education, 2001/02

Data source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). 2004. Global Education Digest 2004. Montreal: UIS.

Average school life expectancy in years per region, primary to secondary education, 2001/02

Region	School life expectancy (years)
East Asia, Pacific	9.7
Eastern and Southern Africa	7.5
Eastern Europe, CIS	9.9
Industrialized countries	12.6
Latin America, Caribbean	11.7
Middle East, North Africa	9.2
South Asia	7.9
West and Central Africa	6.0
World	9.3

Data source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). 2004. Global Education Digest 2004. Montreal: UIS.
Note: Regional values are weighted by each country's population under 18 years of age.

The Global Education Digest 2004 from UNESCO contains data on school life expectancy for nearly all countries. The global average is 9.3 expected years of schooling for every child. At the regional level, the school life expectancy is highest in the industrialized countries (12.6 years) and in Latin America (11.7 years). The lowest school life expectancy is observed in West and Central Africa (6 years) and in Eastern and Southern Africa (7.5 years). Sub-Saharan Africa also has the lowest primary and secondary school enrollment rates.

Friedrich Huebler, 1 May 2005, Creative Commons License