The International Standard Classification of Education 2011

The International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) is a tool for harmonising education-related information. It covers almost all countries in the world and is centrally maintained and documented by UNESCO Institute for Statistics. ISCED is commonly used in official statistics and surveys (e.g. by OECD and Eurostat), but it is also increasingly used for the measurement of educational attainment in academic cross-national surveys. ISCED has been revised between 2008 and 2011, and the new version was adopted by the UNESCO General Conference in November 2011. This research note describes ISCED 2011 and the most important changes as compared to the previous version, ISCED 1997, with a special focus on educational attainment. A brief discussion of strengths and weaknesses of the classification as well as future challenges conclude the note.