International Standard Classification of Education

The International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) is classification structure for organizing information on education and training maintained by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). It is part of the international family of economic and social classifications of the United Nations.

The ISCED was designed in the early 1970s to serve ‘as an instrument suitable for assembling, compiling and presenting statistics of education both within individual countries and internationally’. It was approved by the International Conference on Education (Geneva, 1975), and was subsequently endorsed by UNESCO’s General Conference.

The previous classification, known as ISCED-1997, was approved by the UNESCO General Conference at its 29th session in November 1997 as part of efforts to increase the international comparability of education statistics. It covers primarily two cross-classification variables: levels (7 proposed) and fields of education. The UNESCO Institute for Statistics has proposed a revisions to ISCED (ISCED-2011), which has been approved by UNESCO’s General Conference in November 2011 and which will replace ISCED-1997 in international data collections in the next years. ISCED-2011 added two levels, by dividing the tertiary pre-doctorate level into three levels.

Related materials from the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training provide further information and statistical guidance for classification of sub-fields of education as a companion to ISCED.