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World Bank · Education

Government expenditure on post-secondary non-tertiary education as % of GDP

Total general (local, regional and central) government expenditure on post-secondary non-tertiary education (current, capital, and transfers), expressed as a percentage of GDP. It includes expenditure funded by transfers from international sources to government. Divide total government expenditure for a given level of education (ex. primary, secondary, or all levels combined) by the GDP, and multiply by 100. A higher percentage of GDP spent on education shows a higher government priority for education, but also a higher capacity of the government to raise revenues for public spending, in relation to the size of the country's economy. When interpreting this indicator however, one should keep in mind in some countries, the private sector and/or households may fund a higher proportion of total funding for education, thus making government expenditure appear lower than in other countries. Limitations: In some instances data on total public expenditure on education refers only to the Ministry of Education, excluding other ministries which may also spend a part of their budget on educational activities. For more information, consult the UNESCO Institute of Statistics website: http://www.uis.unesco.org/Education/

Coverage
148 of 251 countries
Latest data
2019
Series
148
Unit
percent
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Retrieved
2026-11-08
Indicator
government-expenditure-on-post-secondary-non-tertiary-education
Interva ID
worldbank-government-expenditure-on-post-secondary-non-tertiary-education

Recency

stale

data to 2019; catalog to 2025

Provenance

2 steps

as the publisher declares it

Versions

1

catalog snapshots

Citation

BibTeX + CSL

versioned permalink

Quality profile

This profile describes what Interva can measure in the data. It does not claim the dataset is accurate, complete, or suitable for a particular use.

Recency

0%

Latest observation is 2019; the catalog broadly reports to 2025, so this data is 6 year(s) behind (stale).

Method: Compares the dataset's latest non-projected period with the year most datasets in the catalog end in. Up to 2 years behind is current — annual data is routinely published a year or two late — and more than 5 is stale. Measured from the data, not from when Interva last crawled it.

Temporal completeness

86%

93 of 148 series skip at least one year inside their own span; the median series reports 86% of its years.

Method: Per series, years present divided by years from its first to its last observation; the median across series is reported. Annual periods are assumed, which holds for every series in the catalog today.

Geographic coverage

Measured

Covers 148 of the 251 countries in the catalog.

Method: Counts distinct geographies with at least one observation. Not scored: a regional dataset covering its region completely is not deficient for omitting the rest of the world.

History depth

Measured

The median series has 8 observations; the earliest begins in 1995.

Method: Counts non-projected observations per series. Not scored: a long history is useful for trend work and irrelevant for a cross-section.

Revisions

Measured

No observation has been restated in any vintage Interva has recorded.

Method: Counts values the publisher changed between Interva's publishes. Not scored: revising estimates is ordinary and often a sign of care, and the count is here so a reader citing a figure knows whether it moves.

Schema conformity

Not assessed

No declared schema or validation rules are attached to this dataset yet.

Validity

Not assessed

No field-level validation rules are attached to this dataset yet.

Consistency

Not assessed

Cross-series consistency rules are not defined yet. The obvious first one — whether two publishers measuring one concept agree within a stated tolerance — is a candidate.

2 scored from the data, 3 described without a score, 3 not assessed. Pipeline integrity: all 5 checks pass. Assessed 2026-11-15.

By country

Government expenditure on post-secondary non-tertiary education as % of GDP for each of the 148 countries it covers, with the full history.

Latest observations

CountryPeriodValueUnit
Andorra20190.01percent
Bangladesh20190.03percent
Dominica20191.00percent
Guatemala20190.00percent
Hong Kong20190.12percent
Jamaica20190.23percent
Mauritius20190.10percent
Myanmar20190.07percent
Sierra Leone20190.14percent
South Africa20190.15percent

Provenance

Who produced these figures, as World Bank declares it — not inferred, and each line says which published field it was read from.

  1. Produced by

    UNESCO Institute for Statistics

    UNESCO Institute for Statistics

    declared by worldbank in sourceOrganization

  2. Read from

    World Bank

    Education Statistics

    declared by worldbank in source

Versions

A vintage is a dated publish of the catalog. The current entry is a catalog snapshot; checksums are not recorded yet and are shown as such.

  • CurrentCurrent catalog snapshotchecksum not recorded

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Citation

Version: catalog snapshot 2026-11-08. The record labels this as a catalog snapshot because immutable dataset releases are not stored yet.

World Bank (2026). Government expenditure on post-secondary non-tertiary education as % of GDP. Interva. https://interva.co/dataset/worldbank-government-expenditure-on-post-secondary-non-tertiary-education (accessed 2026-11-15). catalog snapshot 2026-11-08.

BibTeX
@misc{interva-worldbank-government-expenditure-on-post-secondary-non-tertiary-education,
  title        = {Government expenditure on post-secondary non-tertiary education as \% of GDP},
  author       = {World Bank},
  year         = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://interva.co/dataset/worldbank-government-expenditure-on-post-secondary-non-tertiary-education}},
  note         = {Interva dataset worldbank-government-expenditure-on-post-secondary-non-tertiary-education; catalog snapshot 2026-11-08},
  urldate      = {2026-11-15}
}

DOI: not assigned (not assigned). The permalink is versioned by catalog snapshot; a stable dataset DOI is a later step.

API access

Every fact on this page is available from the API.

(free account, ten a day)

curl https://interva-api.nq5kq4f69b5zj.eu-west-3.cs.amazonlightsail.com/datasets/worldbank-government-expenditure-on-post-secondary-non-tertiary-education
curl "https://interva-api.nq5kq4f69b5zj.eu-west-3.cs.amazonlightsail.com/datasets/worldbank-government-expenditure-on-post-secondary-non-tertiary-education/citation?accessed=YYYY-MM-DD"
curl https://interva-api.nq5kq4f69b5zj.eu-west-3.cs.amazonlightsail.com/datasets/worldbank-government-expenditure-on-post-secondary-non-tertiary-education/quality

Full schema: https://interva-api.nq5kq4f69b5zj.eu-west-3.cs.amazonlightsail.com/docs

Open in the terminal to chart this series, compare it against other publishers, or export it with its provenance.

Government expenditure on post-secondary non-tertiary education as % of GDP · World Bank · Interva