Education Access and Equity by Country: 2026 Data

Education access in 2026 is best described as a multi-stage pathway, not a single enrollment rate. A country may have near-universal primary participation while still showing large losses before upper secondary completion, wide differences between richer and poorer households, or uneven access between rural and urban communities. UNESCO’s 2026 Global Education Monitoring Report therefore treats access and equity together: who enters education, who progresses, who completes, and whether those outcomes are shared across population groups. The latest global evidence shows both wider participation and a persistent gap between entry and completion.

Primary and Secondary Students

1.4 billion

Enrolled worldwide in 2024. [UNESCO GEM]

Children and Youth Out of School

273 million

Primary through upper-secondary age, 2024. [UNESCO GEM]

Primary Completion

88%

Global timely completion estimate for 2024. [UNESCO GEM]

Upper Secondary Completion

61%

Global timely completion estimate for 2024. [UNESCO GEM]

What The 2026 Data Represents

The phrase 2026 data refers mainly to the 2026 international data and reporting cycle, not to a claim that every country was measured during 2026. UNESCO’s statistical tables use the February 2026 UIS release; for pupils, students, teachers, and education expenditure, the newest records generally refer to the school or financial year ending in 2024. The tables cover 208 countries and territories. [UNESCO GEM]

The UNESCO Institute for Statistics reported more than 8.26 million published education data points after its 2026 refresh, with new or revised information from more than 200 countries and territories. That scale improves coverage, but it does not remove differences in observation year. A country value from 2024 and another country’s latest value from 2022 should remain labeled with their own years rather than being presented as if they were measured at the same moment. [UNESCO UIS]

Country comparisons need four pieces of information together: the indicator, the education level, the population group, and the observation year. Equity data add another layer because the same national average can contain very different outcomes by household wealth, location, sex, or disability.

Participation records whether learners are enrolled or attending at a given stage.
Out-of-school rates capture children, adolescents, or youth outside education at the age expected for primary, lower secondary, or upper secondary schooling.
Completion rates show whether access leads to finishing an education cycle.
Equity measures compare outcomes across wealth, location, sex, disability, and other relevant population characteristics.

Education Access Narrows as Learners Move Through The School System

In 2024, 273 million children, adolescents, and youth of primary through upper-secondary age were out of school. The total is not evenly distributed across education levels: 79 million were of primary-school age, 64 million were of lower-secondary age, and 130 million were of upper-secondary age. Upper secondary alone accounted for nearly half of the total. [UNESCO GEM]

Out-of-School Population by Education Level, 2024

Millions of children, adolescents, and youth outside education at the expected age for each level.

Hover or click the chart to inspect values.

Data: UNESCO GEM Report 2026, monitoring SDG 4.

Education Level	Out-of-School Population	Reference Year	Source
Primary	79 million	2024	[UNESCO GEM]
Lower Secondary	64 million	2024	[UNESCO GEM]
Upper Secondary	130 million	2024	[UNESCO GEM]

The education-level pattern matters more than the global total alone. Primary access is much closer to universal in many systems, while upper-secondary participation remains the larger access barrier. The same pattern appears in completion: a learner who enters primary school is not automatically represented among those who finish upper secondary.

Completion Rates Show The Difference Between Entry and Educational Progression

Global completion rose at every major school level between 2000 and 2024. Primary completion moved from 77% to 88%, lower-secondary completion from 60% to 78%, and upper-secondary completion from 37% to 61%. The largest percentage-point gain occurred at upper secondary, yet that level still had the lowest completion rate in 2024. [UNESCO GEM]

Global Completion Rates: 2000 and 2024

Completion improved across all three school levels, while the distance between primary and upper secondary remained wide.

Hover or click the chart to inspect values.

Data: UNESCO GEM Report 2026.

Education Level	2000	2024	Change	Source
Primary	77%	88%	+11 percentage points	[UNESCO GEM]
Lower Secondary	60%	78%	+18 percentage points	[UNESCO GEM]
Upper Secondary	37%	61%	+24 percentage points	[UNESCO GEM]

Completion and out-of-school rates can move differently. UNESCO notes that grade repetition has fallen markedly since 2000, which allows more learners to complete a cycle even when the share outside school changes slowly. This is why enrollment, age-appropriate progression, repetition, and completion should not be collapsed into one measure of educational access.

Country Records Show Different Routes To Wider Access

The 2026 GEM Report compares countries from different starting levels rather than treating education access as one global league table. The records below are country examples with clearly stated indicators and years. They should be read as separate trajectories, not as a ranking of national education systems. [UNESCO GEM]

Country	Indicator	Earlier Value	Latest Value	Period	Source
Lao People’s Democratic Republic	Enrollment of 5-year-olds	About 10%	67%	2000–2023	[UNESCO GEM]
Madagascar	Enrollment of 5-year-olds	10%	66%	2000–2024	[UNESCO GEM]
Uzbekistan	Participation one year before primary entry age	38%	82%	2008–2022	[UNESCO GEM]
Lithuania	Early childhood participation, ages 3–5	About 82%	95%	2013–2023	[UNESCO GEM]
Cambodia	Primary completion	34%	82%	2000–2020	[UNESCO GEM]
Costa Rica	Youth out-of-school rate	28%	4%	2002–2023	[UNESCO GEM]
Costa Rica	Upper secondary completion	36%	78%	2002–2023	[UNESCO GEM]
China	Tertiary gross enrollment ratio	7%	77%	1999–2024	[UNESCO GEM]
Armenia	Children with disabilities educated in special schools	38%	7%	2015–2023	[UNESCO GEM]
Republic of Moldova	Children with disabilities in mainstream schools	29%	95%	2010/11–2023/24	[UNESCO GEM]

These country records also show why a single access measure is too narrow. Preschool participation, primary completion, upper-secondary completion, tertiary enrollment, and inclusive placement describe different stages of an education system. They also move at different speeds. Country context belongs beside the number, especially when the indicator, age group, or reference year changes.

Household Wealth Remains The Widest Measured Equity Divide

National averages can hide large gaps between household groups. In the early 2020s, UNESCO found extreme wealth disparities in 83% of countries with relevant pre-primary data, compared with 21% in primary, 29% in lower secondary, and 55% in upper secondary education. The pattern is not linear: the measured gap is widest before primary school, narrows at primary level, then expands again by upper secondary. [UNESCO GEM]

Countries With Extreme Wealth Disparities by Education Level

Share of countries classified with extreme wealth disparity in the early 2020s.

Hover or click the chart to inspect values.

Data: UNESCO GEM Report 2026 access and equity analysis.

Education Level	Countries With Extreme Wealth Disparity	Reference Period	Source
Pre-Primary	83%	Early 2020s	[UNESCO GEM]
Primary	21%	Early 2020s	[UNESCO GEM]
Lower Secondary	29%	Early 2020s	[UNESCO GEM]
Upper Secondary	55%	Early 2020s	[UNESCO GEM]

Pre-primary education is especially sensitive to family income because public provision, fees, opening hours, transport, and the availability of nearby programs differ widely across countries. In a group of 25 countries in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, participation one year before primary entry rose by about 30 percentage points between the mid-2000s and early 2020s, yet the gap between the richest and poorest children remained around 30 points. [UNESCO GEM]

Rural–Urban Gaps Become More Visible At Secondary Level

Location-based parity improved between 2000 and 2024, but the degree of parity differs by education level. The share of countries reaching rural–urban parity in enrollment increased from 47% to 67% in primary education, from 24% to 45% in lower secondary, and from 5% to 19% in upper secondary. In the early 2020s, 43% of countries still had an extreme rural–urban gap at upper-secondary level, defined in the report as fewer than eight rural youth enrolled for every ten urban youth. [UNESCO GEM]

Countries Reaching Rural–Urban Enrollment Parity

Share of countries at parity by education level in 2000 and 2024.

Hover or click the chart to inspect values.

Data: UNESCO GEM Report 2026 access and equity analysis.

Education Level	2000	2024	Source
Primary	47%	67%	[UNESCO GEM]
Lower Secondary	24%	45%	[UNESCO GEM]
Upper Secondary	5%	19%	[UNESCO GEM]

The secondary-school pattern reflects more than enrollment policy. School density usually falls as education becomes more specialized; travel distances can grow; transport becomes more important; and small communities may not support the same range of upper-secondary programs available in larger population centers. The result can be a national system with high primary access but a much wider location gap later in the education pathway.

Gender Parity Has Improved, but National Averages Do Not Capture Every Combination Of Disadvantage

UNESCO’s current SDG 4 monitoring shows that global gender gaps in enrollment and attendance are now below one percentage point at primary, lower-secondary, and upper-secondary levels. That global result is an important shift, but it does not mean that every country or subgroup has reached parity. Wealth and location can intersect with sex, so national male–female averages may conceal larger differences among poorer or rural learners. [UNESCO GEM]

The 2026 access and equity analysis also shows a rise in the share of countries with gender parity in enrollment. Between 2000 and 2024, the share increased from 42% to 57% in lower secondary and from 17% to 31% in upper secondary education. The most useful country analysis therefore separates sex, wealth, location, and education level instead of treating gender equity as one national number. [UNESCO GEM]

Disability Data Measures Inclusion Differently From Enrollment

Education access for learners with disabilities cannot be read from national enrollment alone. The 2026 GEM analysis reports that the share of countries whose definition of inclusive education extends beyond disability to other forms of disadvantage rose from 75% in 2020 to 82% in 2025. The share of countries whose legislation supports assigning learners with disabilities to mainstream schools rose from 17% to 29%. [UNESCO GEM]

Country evidence illustrates the distinction between legal inclusion and placement. In Armenia, the share of children with disabilities educated in special schools fell from 38% in 2015 to 7% in 2023. In the Republic of Moldova, the share of children with disabilities in mainstream schools rose from 29% in 2010/11 to 95% in 2023/24. These indicators describe where students are educated; they do not by themselves measure accessibility, learning support, participation, or educational outcomes. [UNESCO GEM]

Pre-Primary Access Looks Different when Early Entry To Primary School Is Removed

The headline global indicator says that 75% of children one year before the official primary-entry age were in education in 2024. Yet that figure does not distinguish preschool from early entry into primary school. UNESCO estimates that 27% of children counted at that age were already in primary education. A level-specific method gives a different picture: about 59% had attended pre-primary education, 30% were already in primary without pre-primary experience, and 11% were not yet enrolled. [UNESCO GEM]

Status at Official Primary Entry Age	Estimated Share	Reference Year	Source
Attended pre-primary	59%	2024 or latest available year	[UNESCO GEM]
Already in primary without pre-primary experience	30%	2024 or latest available year	[UNESCO GEM]
Not yet enrolled	11%	2024 or latest available year	[UNESCO GEM]

This measurement issue matters for country comparisons. A high participation rate among 5-year-olds can reflect strong preschool provision, early primary entry, or a mixture of both. The education level must therefore stay attached to the participation rate.

Tertiary Access Requires Both Enrollment and Attainment Measures

Global tertiary gross enrollment reached 44% in 2024, with rates below 15% in low-income countries and above 80% in high-income countries. Gross enrollment is useful for measuring system size, but it can include students outside the expected age group and can rise without an equivalent increase in degree attainment. [UNESCO GEM]

The 2026 report notes that the tertiary attainment rate among 25- to 34-year-olds has historically amounted to only about 60% of the gross enrollment ratio recorded ten years earlier. This gap is one reason UNESCO argues for placing more weight on attainment when comparing post-secondary access across countries. China illustrates the scale that gross enrollment can reach: its tertiary gross enrollment ratio rose from 7% in 1999 to 77% in 2024. [UNESCO GEM]

One Education Equity Ranking Would Hide Important Measurement Differences

Education equity is often compressed into a parity index: the outcome for a disadvantaged group divided by the outcome for a more advantaged group. The measure is useful inside a clearly defined comparison, but UNESCO warns that parity can appear to improve simply because the underlying education indicator rises toward 100%. Two countries with the same parity index can also have very different completion levels. [UNESCO GEM]

Data coverage adds another constraint. For lower-secondary completion, recent location-disparity data cover about two thirds of countries, while recent wealth-disparity data cover about half. Disability trend data remain thinner. A missing equity indicator therefore means data not available for that comparison, not zero inequality. [UNESCO GEM]

A sound country record keeps the raw indicator visible. “Upper-secondary completion: 78%, 2023” carries more information than a synthetic equity score. When wealth or location data exist, the subgroup values should sit beside the national rate rather than being blended into an opaque ranking.

The Remaining Distance Is Concentrated Beyond Primary Education

Primary completion reached 88% globally in 2024, while upper-secondary completion stood at 61%. The distance between those two levels captures one of the central access questions for the rest of the decade: education systems have brought far more learners into school than they did in 2000, but progression through the full secondary cycle remains much less common than primary completion. [UNESCO GEM]

At the pace observed in the 2026 GEM analysis, the world would reach a 95% upper-secondary completion rate in 2105. That projection is not a country forecast; it is a global illustration of the current rate of expansion. Country progress can move faster or slower depending on starting level, demographic change, school capacity, household costs, transport, pre-primary participation, repetition, and the distribution of support across population groups. [UNESCO GEM]

The strongest 2026 country comparison therefore combines access, completion, and equity without forcing them into one score. It preserves each observation year, separates education levels, and keeps subgroup gaps visible. A country can expand enrollment quickly, close a rural–urban gap, improve upper-secondary completion, or widen mainstream access for learners with disabilities; each is a different form of educational progress, and each needs its own measure.