Mean years of schooling in Burkina Faso
In Burkina Faso, the population aged 25 years and older had on average 0.9 years of education in 2007, less than any other country for which the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) released estimates of mean years of schooling in December 2013. The educational attainment of different age cohorts in Burkina Faso can also be examined with data from a Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) conducted in 2010. On average, persons aged 25 years and older in the DHS sample attended school for 1.4 years, slightly more than in the UIS data from 2007. The DHS data show a significant gender gap, with men having on average nearly twice as many years of schooling as women (1.9 years versus 1 year). However, the disparity between men and women in Burkina Faso is not nearly as large as the disparity between the urban and rural population. In urban areas, the average number of years of education is 4.1 years, compared to 0.5 years in rural areas. Urban women have 11 times as many years of schoolin...