Primary education statistics

Data extracted in May 2025.

Planned article update: May 2026.

Highlights

In 2023, there were 23.2 million primary school pupils and 1.90 million primary school teachers across the EU.

85.8% of primary school teachers in the EU in 2023 were women. 19.6% of primary school teachers in the EU were younger than 35 years, 42.7% were aged 35 to 49 years and 37.6% were aged 50 years or over.

In 2023, there were, on average, 13.4 pupils per teacher in primary education across the EU, ranging from an average of 8.2 in Greece to 18.4 in Romania.

Distribution of pupils in primary education by type of institution, 2023
Source: Eurostat (educ_uoe_enrp04)

This article presents statistics on primary education (ISCED level 1) in the European Union (EU) and forms part of the online publication Education and training in the EU - facts and figures.

School helps young people acquire basic life skills and competences that are necessary for their personal development. The quality of a pupil’s early school experience affects not only their development, but also their future place in society, level of educational attainment and employment opportunities. Primary education may be the earliest experience pupils have of school and prepares them for the secondary level of their education.

The quality of education may be linked to teaching standards, which in turn are related to the demands placed upon teachers, the training they receive, the roles they are asked to fill and the resources that are made available for them to carry out their tasks. Equally, the quality of education may show local or regional variations, related to a variety of socio-demographic factors.

Participation

Figure 1: Number of primary education pupils, 2023
Source: Eurostat (educ_uoe_enrp04)

In the EU, there were 23.2 million pupils in primary education in 2023. The number of pupils found in primary education in each of the EU countries reflects their population size, demographic structure, as well as differences in the typical age for starting primary education and the age at which children should start their compulsory formal education.

The largest number of primary education pupils in 2023 among the EU countries was 4.2 million in France. This was notably larger than in Germany, Spain and Italy, which had 3.2 million, 2.9 million and 2.6 million pupils, respectively.

Figure 2: Distribution of pupils in primary education by type of institution, 2023
Source: Eurostat (educ_uoe_enrp04)

Across the EU as a whole, 83.8% of primary education pupils in 2023 were in public institutions, with the remainder in private institutions ^[1]. The split between public and private institutions was heavily skewed among the EU countries, as 21 of the 27 had a share of primary pupils in public institutions that was above the average for the EU. The 6 with shares of primary pupils in private institutions below the EU average were Denmark, Hungary, Spain, Malta, Belgium and the Netherlands. The Netherlands and Belgium were the only EU countries where a majority (70.4% and 53.9%, respectively) of primary pupils were in private education. In all of the 6 EU countries with higher-than-average shares of primary pupils in private institutions, private dependent institutions had a larger – often much larger – share of primary pupils than did private independent institutions.

A majority of primary pupils in the Netherlands (70.0%) and Belgium (53.1%) were educated in private dependent institutions, with the next highest shares in this type of institution recorded in Spain (27.8%) and Malta (27.7%); 4 other EU countries – Denmark, Hungary, France and Sweden – recorded shares above 10.0%. The highest share of primary pupils in private independent institutions was 13.8% in Malta, with Cyprus, Portugal and Luxembourg the only other EU countries with shares above 10.0%.

Number of teachers and pupil-teacher ratios

Table 1: Pupil-teacher ratios and the number of teachers in primary education, 2023
Source: Eurostat (educ_uoe_perp01) and (educ_uoe_perp04)

The pupil-teacher ratio is a measure which may be used indirectly to analyse the quality of schooling. This provides an indication of the average number of pupils there are for each teacher (see Table 1). In 2023, the average for the EU was 13.4 primary education pupils per teacher.

In 2023, the lowest pupil-teacher ratios for primary education were recorded in Greece and Luxembourg, with ratios of 8.2 and 8.6 pupils per teacher, respectively; these were the only EU countries to report ratios below 10.0. At the other end of the range, pupil-teacher ratios above 15.0 primary education pupils per teacher were reported in Germany, the Netherlands, Czechia, France (excluding independent private institutions) and Romania. Romania recorded the highest ratio, 18.4 pupils per teacher.

There were 1.90 million primary education teachers in the EU in 2023; note that the figures exclude teachers in independent private institutions for France and include lower secondary education teachers for Slovenia. The largest number of primary education teachers in 2023 among the EU countries was (to the nearest thousand) 275 000 in Germany. This was slightly more than in Italy (251 000), France (244 000, incomplete) and Spain (243 000).

Sex and age of teachers

Figure 3: Sex distribution of teachers in primary education, 2023
Source: Eurostat (educ_uoe_perp01)

In primary education, there is a clear dominance of female over male teachers in the EU. There were 270 000 male teachers in 2023 in primary education compared with 1.6 million female teachers.

The share of female primary education teachers averaged 85.8% across the EU in 2023, with male teachers accounting for the remaining 14.2%. The share of male teachers was below 10.0% in 10 EU countries, below 20.0% in 22 EU countries, and below a third in all EU countries. The lowest share of male primary education teachers in 2023 was 4.0% in Lithuania. The highest share of male primary education teachers was in Denmark, at 32.8%.

Figure 4: Age distribution of teachers in primary education, 2023
Source: Eurostat (educ_uoe_perp01) and (educ_uoe_perd01)

In 2023, around a fifth (19.6%) of primary education teachers in the EU were younger than 35 years of age. The largest age cohort was for teachers aged 35 to 49 years with a 42.7% share, followed by older teachers (those aged 50 years or over) with a share of 37.6%. Note that the shares for these 3 age classes do not sum to 100.0% for the EU due to the age of some teachers, mainly in Germany and Ireland, being unknown. For comparison, 28.4% of all employed people were under the age of 35 years, 36.8% were aged 35 to 49 years and 34.8% were aged 50 years or over.

The share of older primary education teachers was above 20.0% in 24 EU countries and above 30.0% in 19 of these. The highest shares of older primary education teachers were observed in Italy (57.2%) and Lithuania (56.8%). The 3 EU countries with shares for older teachers that were below 20.0% were Malta, Ireland and Luxembourg. Malta and Luxembourg recorded particularly high shares of younger primary education teachers, approximately double the EU average.

Source data for tables and graphs

Primary education statistics: tables and figures

Data sources

Source

The standards for international statistics on education are set by 3 organisations

the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) institute for statistics (UIS)
the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
Eurostat, the statistical office of the EU.

The source of data used in this article is a joint UNESCO/OECD/Eurostat (UOE) data collection on education statistics and this is the basis for the core components of Eurostat’s database on education statistics; in combination with the joint data collection Eurostat also collects data on regional enrolments and foreign language learning.

More information about the joint data collection is available in an article on the UOE methodology.

Classification

The international standard classification of education (ISCED) is the basis for international education statistics, describing 9 different levels of education.

Key concepts

Pupil-teacher ratios are calculated by dividing the number of full-time equivalent pupils and students in each level of education by the number of full-time equivalent teachers at the same level. This ratio should not be confused with average class size, which refers to the number of students in a given course or classroom.

Symbols

In tables, a colon ‘:’ is used to show where data are not available. Data in italics are estimates or provisional.

Context

Age is generally the sole criterion for admission to compulsory primary education. This starts in most of the EU countries when children reach 6 years of age. Bulgaria, Estonia, Croatia and Finland have a compulsory starting age for primary education of 7 years, while Malta (5 years) has a younger starting age. Although education is compulsory at 5 or 6 years of age in Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden, this is at early childhood education level, not primary education which starts at 7 years. More information about the starting age of compulsory primary education is provided in national quality reports (national metadata) attached to the metadata for administrative data on enrolments. Note that in close to half of the EU countries it is also compulsory for young children to attend pre-primary education (usually at 5 years of age).

Among EU countries, primary education typically lasts 6 years, although its duration can range between 4 and 7 years; as a result, it typically lasts until a child is aged 10 to 12 years. Primary education programmes are typically designed to provide students with fundamental skills in reading, writing and mathematics (in other words, literacy and numeracy) and to establish a solid foundation for learning and understanding core areas of knowledge, personal and social development, in preparation for lower secondary education. It focuses on learning at a basic level of complexity with little, if any, specialisation.

Footnotes

↑ According to the UOE classification, the distinction between public and private is made according to whether a public agency or a private entity has the overall control of the institution and not according to which sector provides the majority of the funding. If a private institution receives the majority of funding from a public agency it is considered to be dependent; if not, it is independent.

Explore further

Database

Education and training (educ), see

Participation in education and training (educ_part)

Education personnel (educ_uoe_per)

Thematic section

Education and training

Selected datasets

Education and training (t_educ)

Methodology

Metadata

Pupils and students – enrolments (ESMS metadata file – educ_uoe_enr_esms)

Manuals and other methodological information

External links

Legislation

Regulation (EC) No 452/2008 of 23 April 2008 concerning the production and development of statistics on education and lifelong learning
- Commission Regulation (EU) No 912/2013 of 23 September 2013 as regards statistics on education and training systems
- Summaries of EU Legislation: statistics on education and lifelong learning

[1] According to the UOE classification, the distinction between public and private is made according to whether a public agency or a private entity has the overall control of the institution and not according to which sector provides the majority of the funding. If a private institution receives the majority of funding from a public agency it is considered to be dependent; if not, it is independent.

[1]