Data
Microproduct Data Guidebeginner

UNESCO UIS Statistics API

Cross-national education indicators from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics for building country comparison and SDG 4 monitoring tools.

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At a Glance

Difficulty
Beginner — comfortable for a first prototype
Size
Tiny · ≤0.05 GB
Formats
JSON, CSV
Access
API or Download
API Key
Not Required
Provider
UNESCO Institute for Statistics
Updates
Annual
Last Verified
Aug 20, 2026
Source Type
Intergovernmental source
Data Terms
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO
  • Python syntax checked
  • Runnable notebook

From Source to Product Signal

Test a Product Idea in Four Steps

The UIS Data API returns internationally comparable education indicators. Start with completion rate CR.1 for one country and a few recent years. Values can lag, national definitions differ, and ShareAlike applies to adapted data products.

1

Check the Setup

  • Python 3.10 or newer
  • A notebook environment such as Jupyter or Google Colab
  • An internet connection
2

Access the Data

  1. 1.Read the UIS Data Browser resources page and confirm the indicator definition for CR.1.
  2. 2.Request one indicator for one country and a bounded year window.
  3. 3.Keep indicatorId, geoUnit, year, and value with any qualifier fields.
Open Official Source
3

Run the Python Example

Install the packages, then run the notebook cell.

python -m pip install pandas requests

import pandas as pd
import requests

response = requests.get(
    "https://api.uis.unesco.org/api/public/data/indicators",
    params={
        "indicator": "CR.1",
        "geoUnit": "USA",
        "start": 2020,
        "end": 2022,
    },
    timeout=30,
)
response.raise_for_status()
observations = pd.DataFrame(response.json()["records"])
observations["retrieved_at_utc"] = pd.Timestamp.now(tz="UTC")
print(observations[["indicatorId", "geoUnit", "year", "value"]].head())
4

Test a Useful Signal

Compare primary completion for two countries

Test whether one UIS completion-rate series can power a bounded country comparison.

  1. 01Repeat the request for a second country and concatenate the year-value rows.
  2. 02Plot both series and report missing years before interpreting a gap.
  3. 03Attribute UIS under CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO and state that national definitions can differ.

Related Datasets

Dataset Details

UNESCO Institute for Statistics is an intergovernmental source. Last verified 2026-08-20. Temporal coverage: indicator series with country-specific starts.

Geography

Global

Formats

JSONCSV

Provider

UNESCO Institute for Statistics

Data Terms

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO

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