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Net enrollment rates in lower secondary education, adjusted gender parity index

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Global Education

What you should know about this indicator

  • Boys and girls don’t always have equal access to lower secondary education — this indicator shows how close we are to gender parity in age-appropriate school enrolment at that level.
  • It captures gender equality in net enrolment rates for lower secondary education by comparing the percentage of girls and boys of official lower secondary school age who are enrolled at that level.
  • The adjusted gender parity index (GPIA) is calculated by dividing the female net enrolment rate by the male net enrolment rate. If the result is greater than 1, it is inverted and subtracted from 2. This adjustment produces a value between 0 and 2 that is symmetrical around 1.
  • A GPIA value of 1 indicates perfect parity. A value below 1 shows a gap in favour of boys, while a value above 1 shows a gap in favour of girls.
  • This indicator is useful for identifying gender-based disparities in lower secondary school enrolment and for tracking progress toward equitable access to post-primary education.
  • The data comes from administrative records reporting enrolment by age and sex, along with population estimates for children in the official lower secondary school age range.
  • It should be interpreted alongside related indicators — such as attendance, progression, and completion rates — to build a clearer picture of gender equity in education beyond access alone.
  • Like all indicators derived from enrolment and population estimates, data inconsistencies or timing issues, such as early or delayed school entry, may affect the accuracy of age-specific enrolment figures.
  • Despite these limitations, the GPIA for net enrolment in lower secondary education remains a powerful tool for assessing gender equity and informing inclusive education policy.
Net enrollment rates in lower secondary education, adjusted gender parity index
An of 1 indicates equal net enrollment rates in school between boys and girls. Values below 1 favor boys, and above 1 favor girls.
Source
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2025) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
May 1, 2025
Next expected update
May 2026
Date range
1970–2024
Unit
index

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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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: Net enrollment rates in lower secondary education, 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/secondary-net-enrollment-gpi [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) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2025) – processed by Our World in Data. “Net enrollment rates in lower secondary education, adjusted gender parity index” [dataset]. UNESCO Institute for Statistics, “UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) - Education” [original data]. Retrieved May 18, 2025 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/secondary-net-enrollment-gpi