The DHS EdData Education Profiles present education data from the DHS in an accessible format. This series of country education profiles uses data from the DHS to characterize children's participation in primary and secondary schooling, and adults' schooling attainment and literacy. These profiles present data from nationally representative, household and individual women's and men's surveys carried out between 1990 and 1999.

Data include information on the following:

Adult schooling attainment
Adults' literacy by years of primary schooling completed and by age
Net and Gross Attendance Ratios for primary and secondary school disaggregated by sex, urban/rural residence and region
Over-age, under-age, and on-time for grade, and age-specific schooling status of youth (i. e. currently attending, never attended, left school)
School repetition, dropout, and retention rates (selected surveys after 1999)
Women's literacy program participation (selected surveys after 1999)

In 2000, a series of profiles was produced for 9 sub-Saharan African countries, including Benin, Ghana, Guinea, Malawi, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, Uganda and Zambia. You may either view the PDF version of the DHS EdData Education Profiles for Africa in its entirety (this document includes all nine countries), or you may download one chapter at a time by selecting from the options below:

Introduction Guinea Namibia Zambia
Benin Malawi Nigeria Appendix
Ghana Mali Uganda

For hard copies of the Africa profiles, contact the Development Experience Clearinghouse at docorder@dec.cdie.org or 703.351.4006 (Document ID#: PN-ACK-134).


In 2003, updated profiles for sub-Saharan Africa and new sets of profiles for the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region and the Asia, Near East, and North Africa (ANE) regions will be produced. The sub-Saharan African countries to be profiled include Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Malawi, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia. The LAC and ANE countries to be profiled are Haiti, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Peru; and Bangladesh, Cambodia, Egypt, India, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.