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Primary school completion rates, adjusted gender parity index

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Global Education

What you should know about this indicator

  • Many children never make it to the final grade of their school level — this indicator shows how close boys and girls are to completing primary education by a slightly older age than expected.
  • It captures gender equality in completion rates for by comparing the percentage of girls and boys, aged 3 to 5 years older than the official age for the last grade of primary school, who have successfully completed that level.
  • The completion age group is based on the expected school path — if children start school on time and progress without repeating or skipping grades. For example, if primary starts at age 6 and lasts 6 years, completion is measured among 14–16-year-olds.
  • The adjusted gender parity index (GPIA) is calculated by dividing the female completion rate by the male completion rate. If the result exceeds 1, it is inverted and subtracted from 2. The index ranges from 0 to 2, with 1 indicating exact parity.
  • A value of 1 means girls and boys complete primary education at equal rates. Values below 1 suggest an advantage for boys; values above 1 suggest an advantage for girls.
  • A high completion rate — close to 100% — means nearly all children complete primary school by the benchmark age, allowing for delays. Lower rates may point to late school entry, dropouts, repetition, or other barriers to completion.
  • The data comes from national censuses, labour force surveys, or other household surveys, and are usually mapped to the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) levels after data collection. This is combined with official data on school starting ages and duration.
  • There are important limitations to consider. Comparisons across countries may be affected by differences in how qualifications are mapped to ISCED levels, changes in school structure over time, and the risk of underestimating completion when programme durations differ in practice from official definitions.
Primary school completion rates, adjusted gender parity index
An of 1 indicates equal primary school completion rates between boys and girls. Values below 1 favor boys, and values above 1 favor girls.
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
1990–2024

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

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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: Primary school completion rates, adjusted gender parity index”, 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/primary-completion-rate-adjusted-gender-parity-index [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. “Primary school completion rates, adjusted gender parity index” [dataset]. UNESCO Institute for Statistics, “UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) - Education” [original data]. Retrieved May 24, 2025 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/primary-completion-rate-adjusted-gender-parity-index