skip to content
Data for Afghanistan

Education in Afghanistan

/ 5 min read

education, afghanistan, data, literacy, school, students, teachers

1. Completion rate


  • From 2011 to 2022, the upper secondary education completion rate nearly doubled, rising from 13.7% to 26.7%. This signifies an improvement in keeping more high school students through the 12th grade.
  • The primary education completion rate peaked in 2015 at 54.5%, but it dropped to 44.2% by 2022. This decline highlights potential challenges in maintaining primary school completion rates. It is possible that young kids might not have the opportunity to complete through grade 6.

  Cite this work:

Data for Afghanistan. (2024). Completion rate of education (%), 2011 to 2022 [Data visualization]. https://dataforafghanistan.org/posts/education/#1-completion-rate. Data retrieved from UNESCO. Licensed under CC BY-ND-NC 4.0.

2. Education attainment rate


  • The educational attainment rate for high school degrees or above peaked at 13% in 2020 but saw a significant dip in 2021 (9.5%) before recovering to 12.6% in 2022. It might be that political instability in 2021 was related to a decrease in the educational attainment rate.
  • The percentage of people with a bachelor's degree or higher more than doubled from 1.9% in 2014 to 4% in 2022, showing a growing number of Afghans achieving higher education in recent years. The dip of 1.2% in 2021 was probably related to political instability that year.

  Cite this work:

Data for Afghanistan. (2024). Educational attainment rate (%), 2014 to 2022 [Data visualization]. https://dataforafghanistan.org/posts/education/#2-education-attainment-rate. Data retrieved from UNESCO. Licensed under CC BY-ND-NC 4.0.

3. Out-of-school rate


  • The out-of-school rate for upper secondary students decreased significantly from 87.3% in 1974 to 51.5% by 2013, indicating an improvement in school attendance in the post-2000 era, highlighted by international aid and economic development in Afghanistan.

  Cite this work:

Data for Afghanistan. (2024). Out-of-school rate, upper secondary school, 1974 to 2018 [Data visualization]. https://dataforafghanistan.org/posts/education/#3-out-of-school-rate. Data retrieved from UNESCO. Licensed under CC BY-ND-NC 4.0.

4. Literacy rate


  • The literacy rate for young people (ages 15 to 25) saw a rise from 30.1% in 1979 to a peak of 64.3% in 2015, reflecting access to education for younger generations. However, it dropped to 55.9% by 2021, indicating setbacks due to political and economic instability.
  • The literacy rate for adults aged 25 and above increased from 18.2% in 1979 to 37.3% in 2021. Despite this progress, a significant portion of Afghanistan's older population remains illiterate, highlighting the need for education opportunities for adults.

  Cite this work:

Data for Afghanistan. (2024). Literacy rate (%), 1979 to 2021 [Data visualization]. https://dataforafghanistan.org/posts/education/#4-literacy-rate. Data retrieved from UNESCO. Licensed under CC BY-ND-NC 4.0.

5. Government spending


  • Government spending on education saw a major jump in 2006, reaching 4.68% of GDP, compared to less than 2% during the 1970s and 1980s. Investment in education increased with Afghanistan's reconstruction efforts.
  • After peaking at 4.81% in 2009, education spending as a share of GDP dropped to 3.26% in 2015 before increasing to 4.5% in 2016. These changes highlight inconsistent government spending in education which could undermine access to education in Afghanistan.

  Cite this work:

Data for Afghanistan. (2024). Government expenditure on education (% of GDP), 1971 to 2017 [Data visualization]. https://dataforafghanistan.org/posts/education/#5-government-spending. Data retrieved from UNESCO. Licensed under CC BY-ND-NC 4.0.

6. Students per school & teacher


  • The number of students per school in Afghanistan has varied over the years. In 2004 and 2006, the number of students per school was the highest in the data (655 and 649, respectively). However, this number has been below 600 since 2008, signaling efforts to distribute students more evenly across educational facilities.
  • The number of students per teacher in Afghanistan shows a slightly upward trend from 2002 to 2022. The period from 2010 to 2016 saw consistently high student numbers per teacher, reflecting the growing demand for education, exceeding the pace of new teacher recruitment. After 2015, there was a slight decline in the student-teacher ratio. The overall trend suggests that Afghanistan's education system has struggled to keep up with the growing student population, leading to larger class sizes.

  Cite this work:

Data for Afghanistan. (2024). Average number of students per school and teacher, 2002 to 2022 [Data visualization]. https://dataforafghanistan.org/posts/education/#6-students-per-school--teacher. Data retrieved from the National Statistics and Information Authority of Afghanistan. Licensed under CC BY-ND-NC 4.0.