The share of government expenditure for a specific education level allows an assessment of the priority a government assigns to a level of education relative to other levels. Enrolment and the relative costs per student between different levels of education should be also taken into account.
Expenditure on tertiary education (% of government expenditure on education)
Data disaggregated by level of education are estimates in some instances. It is often difficult to separate lower from upper secondary education expenditure, or pre-primary from primary.
Expenditure on tertiary education is expressed as a percentage of total general government expenditure on education. General government usually refers to local, regional and central governments.
The share of expenditure on tertiary education to total government expenditure on education is calculated by dividing government expenditure on tertiary education by total government expenditure on education (all levels combined), and multiplying by 100. Aggregate data are based on World Bank estimates.

Data on education are collected by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics from official responses to its annual education survey. All the data are mapped to the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) to ensure the comparability of education programs at the international level. The current version was formally adopted by UNESCO Member States in 2011. 

The reference years reflect the school year for which the data are presented. In some countries the school year spans two calendar years (for example, from September 2010 to June 2011); in these cases the reference year refers to the year in which the school year ended (2011 in the example).