International Statistic: quality

Showing posts with label quality. Show all posts

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Pupil/teacher ratio in secondary school

The pupil/teacher ratio is an indicator of education quality. In crowded classrooms with a high number of pupils per teacher the quality of education suffers. For pupils it is difficult to follow the course and teachers can dedicate less time to the needs of each individual student. Data from UNESCO on the pupil/teacher ratio in primary school show that crowded classrooms are more common in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia than in other parts of the world. 22 of the 27 countries with 40 or more pupils per primary school teacher are located in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In secondary school, pupil/teacher ratios are lower than in primary school. The Data Centre of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics provides the pupil/teacher ratio in secondary school for 189 countries and territories. For 100 countries, the pupil/teacher ratios are from 2006, 9 countries have data from 2007, 51 countries have data from 2004 or 2005, and the remaining 29 countries have data from 1999 to 2003. For the map below, all countries with data were divided into five groups:

Fewer than 10 pupils per teacher: 24 countries
10 to 19 pupils per teacher: 107 countries
20 to 29 pupils per teacher: 41 countries
30 to 39 pupils per teacher: 13 countries
40 or more pupils per teacher: 4 countries

Pupil/teacher ratio in secondary school, circa 2006
Map of the world showing national pupil/teacher ratios in secondary school

Data source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Data Centre, May 2008.

The lowest pupil/teacher ratios in secondary school were reported for Bermuda (6.0), Tokelau (7.0), Portugal (7.1), and Andorra (7.8). 20 additional countries have pupil/teacher ratios above 8 and below 10: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Croatia, Georgia, Greece, Kuwait, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malta, Monaco, Niue, Norway, Qatar, Russia, Sweden, and Turks and Caicos Islands.

More than half of all countries - including most countries in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia - have pupil/teacher ratios between 10 and 19. The group also includes some countries in other regions. Although pupil/teacher ratios in Sub-Saharan Africa are generally higher than in other parts of the world, the following countries from the region have only 10 to 19 pupils per secondary school teacher: Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritius, Seychelles, and Swaziland. 22 of the 41 countries with pupil/teacher ratios between 20 and 29 are also located in Sub-Saharan Africa.

17 countries have 30 or more pupils per teacher in secondary school and 10 of these countries are in Sub-Saharan Africa. The countries with 30 to 39 pupils per teacher are Chad, Congo, Djibouti, Honduras, India, Kenya, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Philippines, South Africa, and Zambia. Classes at the secondary level of education are most crowded in Nigeria (pupil/teacher ratio 40.2), Pakistan (41.9), Malawi (45.6), and Eritrea (54.4).

The following table lists the average pupil/teacher ratio in secondary school by Millennium Development Goal region. The Commonwealth of Independent States (10.9), the developed countries (11.4), Oceania (14.8), Western Asia (15.3), Latin America and the Caribbean (16.6), Eastern Asia (19.0), and Northern Africa (19.0) have average pupil/teacher ratios below 20. Pupil/teacher ratios are highest in South-Eastern Asia (22.8), Sub-Saharan Africa (25.8), and Southern Asia (26.4). The global average is 18.0 pupils per teacher in secondary school. These average values are unweighted, which means that each country is given the same weight within its region, regardless of the size of its population.

Average pupil/teacher ratio in secondary school by MDG region, circa 2006

MDG region	Pupil/teacher ratio
Developed countries	11.4
Commonwealth of Independent States	10.9
Eastern Asia	19.0
South-Eastern Asia	22.8
Oceania	14.8
Southern Asia	26.4
Western Asia	15.3
Northern Africa	19.0
Sub-Saharan Africa	25.8
Latin America and the Caribbean	16.6
World	18.0

Data source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Data Centre, May 2008. Regional and global averages are unweighted.

The data analyzed in this article can be downloaded from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics Data Centre, under Predefined Tables - Education - Table 11: Indicators on teaching staff at ISCED levels 0 to 3.

Related articles

External links

UNESCO Institute for Statistics Data Centre

Friedrich Huebler, 16 November 2008, Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2008/11/ptr.html

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Pupil/teacher ratio in primary school

Global primary school attendance rates have been on a steady upward trend over the past years. As the world moves closer to the goal of universal primary education, the issue of education quality attracts increasing attention. One measure of education quality is the pupil/teacher ratio, the number of pupils per teacher in a school. Teachers of a large class can dedicate less time to each pupil than in a small class. For the pupils, crowded classrooms make it difficult to concentrate on the material and to learn. The results of overcrowding are lower academic achievement and increased dropout rates.

The map below displays the pupil/teacher ratio in primary school in 194 countries and territories for which data were available. The data were obtained from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. For 124 countries, the pupil/teacher ratios are from 2006, 12 countries have data from 2007, 42 countries have data from 2004 or 2005, and the remaining 16 countries have data from 1999 to 2003. For the map, all countries were divided into five groups:

Fewer than 10 pupils per teacher: 7 countries
10 to 19 pupils per teacher: 90 countries
20 to 29 pupils per teacher: 43 countries
30 to 39 pupils per teacher: 27 countries
40 or more pupils per teacher: 27 countries

Pupil/teacher ratio in primary school, circa 2006
Map of the world showing national pupil/teacher ratios in primary school

Data source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, Data Centre, May 2008.

The lowest pupil/teacher ratios in primary school were observed in Tokelau (5.8), San Marino (6.3), Bermuda (8.3), Liechtenstein (8.4), Denmark (9.9), and Sweden and Cuba (10.0). Most developed countries, countries in Eastern Europe and former members states of the Soviet Union have pupil/teacher ratios between 10 and 19. Some countries in East and South-East Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America also belong to this group, among them China, the world's most populous country, with a pupil/teacher ratio of 18.3. The majority of countries in Latin America, as well as some countries in Africa and Asia, have pupil/teacher ratios between 20 and 29.

Pupil/teacher ratios above 30 are common in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. In 11 countries, primary school teachers have more than 50 pupils on average: Afghanistan (83.4), Mozambique (67.4), Rwanda (65.9), Chad (63.2), Mali (55.6), Congo (54.8), Burundi (54.2), Tanzania (53.1), Zambia (51.2), Bangladesh (50.9), and Cambodia (50.4). 22 of the 27 countries with 40 or more pupils per teacher are located in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The following table lists the average pupil/teacher ratio in primary school by Millennium Development Goal region. The highest pupil/teacher ratios exist in Sub-Saharan Africa (40.7) and Southern Asia (37.8). In contrast, the average pupil/teacher ratio in the developed countries is 13.7. In Western Asia (17.8), the Commonwealth of Independent States (17.9), and Oceania (19.8), the average pupil/teacher ratio is also below 20. The global average is 24.6 pupils per teacher in primary school. All regional and global averages are not weighted the population of each country; instead, each country is given the same weight within its region, regardless of the size of its population.

Pupil/teacher ratio in primary school by MDG region, circa 2006

MDG region	Pupil/teacher ratio
Developed countries	13.7
Commonwealth of Independent States	17.9
Eastern Asia	23.4
South-Eastern Asia	26.5
Oceania	19.8
Southern Asia	37.8
Western Asia	17.8
Northern Africa	24.4
Sub-Saharan Africa	40.7
Latin America and the Caribbean	21.3
World	24.6

External links

Friedrich Huebler, 26 October 2008 (edited 16 November 2006), Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2008/10/ptr.html

Sunday, July 27, 2008

A view inside primary schools

A new publication by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, A view inside primary schools: A World Education Indicators (WEI) cross-national study, presents new data on quality and equality in primary education. The data is from 11 countries in Asia, Latin America, and North Africa that participated in the Survey of Primary Schools by the World Education Indicators Programme in 2005 and 2006. For the survey, fourth grade teachers and principals from over 7,600 schools responded to questions about teaching and learning conditions.

The countries in the study - Argentina, Brazil, Chile, India, Malaysia, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, and Uruguay - are close to the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education. However, the survey reveals large resource gaps between schools in urban and rural areas. Children in poorly equipped and maintained schools often come from poor families and these children are thus doubly disadvantaged.

Other findings of the survey include:

In Paraguay, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka, more than one in five pupils attended schools without running water.
In India, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Tunisia, less than half of all pupils were in schools with a telephone.
Sri Lanka was the only country participating in the survey that provided free textbooks to virtually all pupils.
The overall weekly teaching load for Grade 4 teachers working in only one school ranged from 14 hours in Malaysia to 31 hours in Chile and the Philippines. The average teaching load was 23 hours per week.
In all countries in the survey - except in India, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka - most teachers expressed low levels of satisfaction with their salaries.

The full report, with detailed tables and figures, is available for download at the UIS website.

External links

Download A view inside primary schools (PDF document, 2.9 MB)
Press release by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics
UN Millennium Development Goals

Friedrich Huebler, 27 July 2008 (edited 26 October 2008), Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2008/07/primary-schools.html