Education

Abstract

Of all the subjects on which statistical material exists, none (not even crime) shows less uniformity, both over time and between countries, than education. There is no universal definition of what constitutes a primary school or a general secondary school. Even the definition of a university has shown some flexibility, especially in recent years. Moreover, there has been a minimum of two major reorganisations of school systems in every country of Europe in the twentieth century; there were others earlier; and minor changes have been very frequent. Furthermore, the statistics of pupils and teachers have not always been collected in a consistent manner, even within the same school system. The date in the school-year to which they relate has been altered on various occasions. The exact meaning of the statistics has been changed, sometimes referring to all pupils on the registers, sometimes to those in regular attendance, sometimes to those present on a particular day, and sometimes to those present when the inspector visited. Nevertheless, in spite of all the inconsistencies and other obstacles in the way of precise comparisons, when used with care these statistics do provide useful intertemporal comparative material, even if of a rough nature. Comparisons between countries may sometimes be made on the basis of the data provided here but often they require more detailed information on the precise composition of the statistics than can be given in the space available.