The Digest provides data for the 2002/03 school year or the latest year available. Data for 1998 for a subset of indicators are also presented which allows for comparisons over time. Alongside a set of traditional education indicators, the Global Education Digest 2005 presents new indicators that:

• provide measures of gender parity in participation, progress and completion across all levels of education;
• emphasise the importance of monitoring whether children complete a full course of primary schooling by providing four different indicators on completion;
• provide the most comprehensive source of data on rates of upper secondary graduation and entry into tertiary education; and
• provide insight into youth participation in different educational streams by presenting breakdowns of general and vocational technical secondary education.

The Digest opens with an analytical chapter that interprets the indicators found therein – in this case assessing the global expansion of opportunities in lower and upper secondary education. It focuses particularly on the key transition between primary and secondary schooling and looks at how access and progression in secondary education differs between girls and boys.

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