409. This chapter briefly reviews the practices regarding the collection of educational characteristics in the last census round, including topics related to both formal and non-formal education that may be collected or compiled as part of a census.

410. The CES Recommendations included only one core topic on education, that is educational attainment and various non-core topics.

411. In the CES Recommendations, the topic educational attainment was defined (para. 602) as "the highest ISCED [International Standard Classification of Education⁴] level successfully completed by an individual.... usually measured with respect to the highest education programme successfully completed, and which is typically certified by a recognized qualification".

412. The CES also recommended that data on educational attainment be collected for all persons ten years of age and over (para. 603), and be coded using the following levels of the ISCED-A 2011 (para.606):

(a) ISCED level 0: Less than primary education

(b) ISCED level 1: Primary education

(c) ISCED level 2: Lower secondary education

(d) ISCED level 3: Upper) secondary education

(e) ISCED level 4: Post-secondary non-tertiary education

(f) ISCED level 5: Short-cycle tertiary education

(g) ISCED level 6: Bachelor's or equivalent level

(h) ISCED level 7: Master's or equivalent level

(i) ISCED level 8: Doctoral or equivalent level.

413. Various information on the collection in the census of data on educational attainment is presented in Table 75. All responding countries collected in their census information on educational attainment, with the exception of Monaco that reported not having collected this information, which is however probably available from administrative sources also in that country.

414. The main data source used was full enumeration for most countries with a field enumeration census (14 out of 16) and combined census (10 out of 17), but sample data were used as main data source by 6 countries with either type of census. All countries with register-based census used as main source registers or administrative data, as expected.

415. The level of compliance with the CESR definition was almost as good, with 41 countries indicating their compliance in their response to the survey. Only five countries (Canada, Finland, Germany, Israel and the United Kingdom) reported that they did not fully adopt the CESR definition of the topic.

416. Overall compliance with the CES Recommendation that data on educational attainment should be collected for all persons aged 10 and over was far less universal. Only 22 of the responding countries (less than half overall) were able to do so, including about two thirds of countries with a field enumeration census, but less than half of those with a combined or register-based census.

	Total (out of 47 countries)	Type of census
		Field enumeration (16 countries)	Combined (17 countries)	Register-based (14 countries)
Information collected	46	16	17	13
Main data source:
full enumeration	24	14	10	0
sample data	6	2	4	0
registers/admin.rec.	16	0	3	13
Definition used fully comply with CESR?
Yes	41	14	15	12
No	5	2	2	1
Minimal age for data collection:
No minimal age	6	2	1	3
9 or less	9	5	3	1
10 [recommended by CES]	7	3	3	1
13	1	0	1	0
14	1	1	0	0
15	16	2	8	6
16	3	1	0	2
Information not collected	1	0	0	1

417. The CES Recommendations identified a number of other (non-core) education-related topics that could be considered for inclusion in the censuses. The UNECE survey included a question to countries on whether they collected information on those topics, what was the main data sources used, and if the definitions used fully comply with the CES Recommendations.

418. Table 76 presents the results for the non-core topics that were included in the census by a significant number of countries (14 or more). The topics included by most countries are school attendance (22 countries), literacy (17), educational qualification (15) and field of study (14). All those four topics were included in the census by about half or more of the countries with a field enumeration census. For countries with a register-based census, the topic field of study was included in the census by 4 countries and the other topics by only 1 or 2 countries. For combined censuses, the number of countries including the topic range from 3 for field of study to 9 for school attendance.

419. The level of compliance with the definitions recommended by the CES for the four topics is very good. The percentage of countries that used a definition fully compliant with the CES recommendations ranges from 85% for school attendance to 100% for literacy.

420. The survey question included also other non-core topics – not mentioned in Table 76 – that were collected in the census by a limited number of countries: school enrolment/registration was collected in the census by 7 countries, computer literacy by 3 countries and length of school attendance by 1 country only.

Topics, data sources and definitions used	Total (out of 47 countries)	Type of census
		Field enumeration (16 countries)	Combined (17 countries)	Register-based (14 countries)
School attendance – collected	22	11	9	2
Main data source:
full enumeration	13	7	6	0
sample data	5	2	3	0
registers/admin.rec.	1	0	0	1
Definition used fully comply with CESR?
Yes	17	8	8	1
No	3	2	1	0
Literacy – collected	17	9	7	1
Main data source:
full enumeration	10	6	4	0
sample data	2	0	2	0
registers/admin.rec.	1	0	0	1
Definition used fully comply with CESR?
Yes	14	7	6	1
No	0	0	0	0
Educational qualifications – collected	15	9	5	1
Main data source:
full enumeration	7	6	1	0
sample data	4	2	2	0
registers/admin.rec.	3	0	2	1
Definition used fully comply with CESR?
Yes	14	8	5	1
No	1	1	0	0
Field of study – collected	14	7	3	4
Main data source:
full enumeration	5	4	1	0
sample data	3	2	0	0
registers/admin.rec.	6	0	2	4
Definition used fully comply with CESR?
Yes	13	6	3	4
No	1	1	0	0