Countries With the Lowest Expected Schooling

Every country with a figure for expected schooling, ranked from lowest to highest. The top three are South Sudan (5.63), Djibouti (6.21) and Mali (7.01). The middle country of the 195 has 13.3.

What this measures

Expected years of schooling. Source: United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report Office. For this measure, higher is better.

The years a child starting school today can expect to spend in it, if current enrolment rates hold. It is a forecast built from the same UNESCO enrolment figures the site already has, so it moves with them.

This measure mostly follows how rich a country is, so this ranking is close to a ranking by national income. Each country’s page also ranks it against countries with similar incomes, which is often the fairer comparison.

The full ranking

Each country’s latest figure, from 2023–2023. The year beside each value says when it was measured.

More on expected schooling

• Countries With the Highest Expected Schooling
• Expected schooling by country: trend over time and what it goes with

Related rankings

• Countries With the Lowest PISA Maths
• Countries With the Lowest PISA Reading
• Countries With the Lowest PISA Science
• Countries With the Lowest Primary Completion
• Countries With the Lowest Mean Years of Schooling
• Countries With the Lowest Education Spending
• Countries With the Lowest Primary Enrollment
• Countries With the Lowest Secondary Enrollment

A ranking describes countries, not the people in them, and a high or low place does not by itself say why. All country rankings.