Definition Total number of new entrants in first grade of primary education, regardless of age, expressed as a percentage of the population at the official primary school-entrance age.
Purpose Apparent Intake Rate indicates the general level of access to primary education.It also indicates the capacity of the education system to provide access to grade 1 for the official school-entrance age population. This indicator is used as a substitute to Net Intake Rate in the absence of data on new entrants by single years of age.
Calculation method Divide the number of new entrants into grade 1, irrespective of age, by the population of official school-entrance age, and multiply the result by 100.
Formula :
Where:
= Apparent
Intake Rate in school-year t
= Number
of new entrants in the first grade of primary education, in school-year
t
= Population
of official primary school entrance-age a, in school-year
t.N.B.: When data on new entrants are not separately reported, they can be derived by subtracting the numbers of repeaters from enrolment in first grade, before calculating the apparent intake rate.
Data required New entrants in the first grade of primary education (or enrolment minus repeaters in the first grade); population of the official primary school-entrance age.
Data source School register, school survey or census for data on new entrants by age. Population census or estimates for primary school-entrance age population.
Type of disaggregation The Apparent Intake Rate is to be disaggregated by gender and geographical location (region, rural/urban).
Interpretation A high Apparent Intake Rate indicates a high degree of access to primary education. As this calculation includes all new entrants to first grade (regardless of age), the Apparent Intake Rate can be more than 100%, due to over- and under-aged children entering primary school for the first time.
Quality standards Data on population used in deriving this indicator should refer strictly to the official school-entrance age. Care should be taken not to include repeaters in grade 1 in the calculation, since this will lead to an inflated Apparent Intake Rate.
Limitations A high Apparent Intake Rate may be the effect of a backlog of over-aged children who have not entered school when they were at the official primary school-entrance age.