Total number of students of official primary school entrance age who are enrolled in primary education, expressed as a percentage of the population of the same age. It is the equivalent of the Age-specific enrolment rate of official primary entrance age.
Divide the number of students in the official primary school entrance age who are enrolled in primary education, regardless of the year of entrance, grade or repetition, by the population of the same age, and multiply the result by 100.
Enrolment in the official primary school entrance age and population of the corresponding age.
School register, school survey or census for data on enrolment by age; population census or estimates for the official primary school entrance age population.
While the Net intake rate (NIR) measures timely access to primary school for the official entrance age, the NIRA captures actual access to primary school for the total population of the official entrance age. It reflects efforts made by governments to achieve universal entrance to primary education of the eligible population of the official primary school entrance age. A value of 100% indicates theoretically that the system has reached all children of the official primary school entrance age and accomplished an important step toward achieving the Universal Primary Education (UPE) goal. This value reflects also implicitly the achievement of equal gender access to primary education of the population of the official entrance age. NIRA gives the proportion of children of the official primary school entrance age that are enrolled in primary education level but not necessary for the first time or in the first grade. The difference between 100% and the NIRA value provides a measure of the proportion of this population who are left out of timely access to primary education. They either never enter school or enter as overage pupils.
This indicator is based on enrolment and population data that use different reference dates for ages, which might underestimate or overestimate its real value.
To measure the actual level of access to primary education of the population of the official primary school entrance age.
NIRA should be based on total enrolment of all children of the official primary school entrance age in all types of schools that provide organized educational programmes, including public and private institutions. It must be ensured that the enrolment data cover pupils who enter primary school earlier and might repeat the first grade or be at higher grades. For some countries, where the reference date for pupils’ age is substantially later than the beginning of the school year (e.g. when ages refer to December 31), the NIRA can be substantially underestimated.
By sex.