Enrolment in education

High enrolment rates in compulsory education is a crucial objective for increasing a nation’s human capital. The higher the number of students reaching the next educational stage (up to tertiary education), the more solid the premises for a nation’s development.

The main indicator for this subfield is the gross enrolment ratio by level of education (which most education experts consider important), with the support secondary indicator, the net enrolment rate by level of education. While the net enrolment rate is relevant for the current functioning of the educational system, the gross enrolment rate is all the more relevant, because it reflects the recovery of students who at one point abandoned or interrupted their studies. Because enrolment rates by level of education (gross and net enrolment rates) are available only in occasional and institutional reports, the data for this indicator was taken from UNESCO database. The evolution of the gross enrolment rate shows that in the 2002-2008 timeframe at all three educational stages analysed the percentages were higher than 100%, which means that previous dropouts have been recovered; after 2008, the data shows a decrease at all educational stages. [read more]

Secondary indicators were mainly selected following the relevance and availability criteria, the final list including: school population size and distribution, enrolment rates by age groups (% of total resident population in the same age group, a synthetic indicator available in the National Institute of Statistics database, that adds more information to the gross and net enrolment rates), drop-out rates by educational stages, sex and residence, effective transition rate from primary to lower secondary general education (a significant aspect, showing the percentage of children who have completed primary school) and, finally, a synthetic indicator, expected school years.