Completion rate in primary education
What you should know about this indicator
- This indicator estimates how many children complete primary education, even if they do so later than the expected age.
- It captures the percentage of the population aged 3 to 5 years above the official age for the last grade of primary school who are estimated to have successfully completed that level.
- Completion age is based on the expected school trajectory — if children start school on time and progress without repeating.
- For example, if primary starts at age 6 and lasts six years, completion is assessed among 14- to 16-year-olds. For the UK this would be children aged 14-16 years as the age of primary completion is 11.
- These estimates are produced using a statistical model that draws from administrative and survey data, filling gaps where direct observations are missing or inconsistent.
- A high rate means that most children eventually reach the final grade of primary school, with some allowance for delays. Lower rates may signal barriers to school entry, dropout, or grade repetition.
- The data sources include household surveys, censuses, and administrative records, with modelled adjustments to improve comparability across countries.
- Because values are estimated, they may differ from official national figures. Differences in school systems or grade structures can also affect comparability.
Sources and processing
This data is based on the following sources
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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: Completion rate 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/completion-rate-of-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) – with minor processing by Our World in DataFull citation
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2025) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Completion rate in primary education” [dataset]. UNESCO Institute for Statistics, “UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) - Education” [original data]. Retrieved May 18, 2025 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/completion-rate-of-primary-education