The Program for Research on Private Higher Education
Dedicated to Building Knowledge about Private Higher Education around the World

Global Private and Total Higher Education Enrollment by Region and Country, 2010

 Legends (notations 1, 2a, 2b, 3, 4, NA) are explained just below the table

 
Regions Countries Private % Private 2010 Total 2010 Notes
Global     32.9   56,722,374   172,546,175  
Africa (Sub-Saharan) (45 entries)     17.8   930,016   5,218,120  
  Angola   36.9   24,419   66,251  
  Benin   24.2   27,657   114,382  
  Botswana    41.0   17,372   42,366 See Notes
  Burkina Faso   18.9   9,668   51,166  
  Burundi   57.7   16,876   29,269  
  Cameroon   13.9   30,551   220,331  
  Cape Verde   60.1   6,094   10,144  
  Central African Republic (2a) 14.2 (2a) 1,583   11,158  
  Chad   31.8   7,035   22,130  
  Comoros   23.3   1,186   5,091  
  Congo (2a) 32.7 (2a) 9,212 (2a) 28,175  
  Cote d'Ivoire   37.8   54,540   144,270  
  Democratic Republic of the Congo  (2b) 15.0 (2b) 64,392 (2a) 429,279 See Notes
  Equatorial Guinea   NA   NA (2b) 1,003  
  Eritrea  (4) 0 (4) 0   12,039 See Notes
  Ethiopia (2a) 16.7 (2a) 96,546   577,594  
  Gabon  (2b) 46.3 (2b) 25,000 (2b) 54,000 See Notes
  Gambia   81.1   2,685   3,312  
  Ghana (2a) 11.3 (2a) 27,193 (2a) 241,117  
  Guinea   22.9   22,528   98,528  
  Guinea-Bissau   NA   NA (2a) 7,191  
  Kenya (2a) 13.2 (2a) 24,375 (2a) 185,269  
  Lesotho (2b) 13.7 (2b) 2,427 (2a) 17,684  
  Liberia   38.8   13,000   33,470  
  Madagascar   22.9   17,062   74,444  
  Malawi   5.8   600   10,296  
  Mali (2b) 11.9 (2b) 9,660   81,188  
  Mauritius   34.9   11,661   33,427  
  Mozambique (2a) 26.7 (2a) 26,061 (2a) 97,670  
  Namibia (2a) 94.5 (2a) 27,834 (2a) 29,455  
  Niger   25.0   4,279   17,096  
  Nigeria  (3) 7.0 (3) 59,314 (3) 842,219 See Notes
  Rwanda   49.7   31,170   62,734  
  Sao Tome and Principe (2b) 31.9 (2b) 244   766  
  Senegal   32.6   30,000   92,106  
  Seychelles   NA   NA   NA  
  Sierra Leone    0   0 (2a) 10,133 See Notes
  Somalia   NA   NA   NA  
  South Africa  (3) 9.3 (3) 91,064 (3) 984,020 See Notes
  Swaziland   0   0 (2a) 8,142  
  Tanzania   16.3   13,861   85,113  
  Togo   13.2   7,414   55,959  
  Uganda  (2a) 54.6 (2a) 103,327 (2a) 189,396 See Notes
  Zambia   NA   NA (2a) 44,127  
  Zimbabwe   12.8   12,127   94,611  
Arab States (20 entries)     17.4   1,423,630   8,201,861  
  Algeria  (4) 0 (4) 0   1,144,271 See Notes
  Bahrain (2b) 48.9 (2b) 16,950   34,689  
  Djibouti    0   0   3,225 See Notes
  Egypt  (3) 19.9 (3) 436,208 (3) 2,192,452 See Notes
  Iraq  (2b) 39.5 (2b) 194,608 (2a) 492,507 See Notes
  Jordan (2a) 35.9 (2a) 88,587   246,928  
  Kuwait   NA   NA (2a) 35,190  
  Lebanon   57.9   117,242   202,345  
  Libya (2b) 19.5 (2b) 99,143 (2a) 507,706  
  Mauritania  (4) 0 (4) 0   14,536 See Notes
  Morocco   12.3   54,692   446,073  
  Oman   44.9   35,020   78,063  
  Qatar   37.8   5,233   13,846  
  Saudi Arabia    4.5   33,917 (3) 749,238 See Notes
  Sudan (pre-secession)   NA   NA   522,774  
  Syrian Arab Republic  (3) 6.0 (3) 34,436   573,930 See Notes
  Tunisia   3.4   12,586   373,427  
  United Arab Emirates  (3) 61.5 (3) 62,639   101,906 See Notes
  West Bank and Gaza   87.3   171,669   196,625  
  Yemen (2a) 22.3 (2a) 60,700   272,130  
Asia (5 sub-regions)     42.1   32,267,911   76,568,246  
1. Central and Western Asia (10 entries)     37.5   2,227,027   5,935,781  
  Armenia (2b) 19.1 (2b) 27,935   146,125  
  Azerbaijan   13.0   23,519   180,727  
  Georgia   27.1   28,654   105,696  
  Iran (Islamic Republic of)   44.9   1,702,572   3,790,859  
  Kazakhstan   46.4   351,091   756,706  
  Kyrgyzstan   10.8   28,068   260,583  
  Mongolia   39.3   65,188   165,769  
  Tajikistan    0   0   195,697 See Notes
  Turkmenistan  (4) 0 (4) 0 (2b) 44,411 See Notes
  Uzbekistan  (4) 0 (4) 0   289,208 See Notes
2. East Asia (6 entries)     33.2   10,380,995   31,256,405  
  China  (3) 19.6 (3) 4,664,531 (3) 23,856,345 See Notes
  China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region   16.5   43,570   264,761  
  China, Macao Special Administrative Region   64.3   18,958   29,476  
  Democratic People's Republic of Korea   NA   NA   NA  See Notes
  Japan   78.6   3,016,964   3,836,314  
  Republic of Korea   80.7   2,636,972   3,269,509  
3. Pacific Island Countries (15 entries)     19.7   9,778   49,516  
  Cook Islands (2b) 59.7 (2b) 311 (2b) 521  
  Fiji   NA   NA (2a) 12,392  
  Kiribati   NA   NA   NA  
  Marshall Islands (2b) 22.4 (2b) 275 (2a) 1,231  
  Micronesia (Federated States of)   NA   NA (2a) 1,861  
  Nauru   NA   NA   NA  
  Niue   NA   NA   NA  
  Palau (4) 0 (4) 0 (2a) 517  
  Papua New Guinea   NA   NA (2b) 9,943  
  Samoa (2b) 0 (2b) 0 (2b) 1,182  
  Solomon Islands   NA   NA   NA  
  Timor-Leste (2b) 42.9 (2b) 8,242 (2a) 19,210  
  Tonga (2b) 67.0 (2b) 949 (2a) 1,416  
  Tuvalu   NA   NA   NA  
  Vanuatu   NA   NA (2a) 1,243  
4. South Asia (8 entries)     54.7   13,615,487   24,892,053  
  Afghanistan  (3) 16.5 (3) 14,941 (3) 90,576 See Notes
  Bangladesh (2a) 44.1 (2a) 785,830 (2a) 1,782,566  
  Bhutan  (4) 0 (4) 0   5,499 See Notes
  India  (2a) 58.3 (2a) 12,443,748 (2a) 21,350,427 See Notes
  Maldives   NA   NA (2a) 7,188  
  Nepal   59.3   223,521   376,869  
  Pakistan  (3) 14.5 (3) 147,447 (3) 1,017,282 See Notes
  Sri Lanka  (4) 0 (4) 0   261,647 See Notes
5. Southeast Asia (10 entries)     41.8   6,034,624   14,434,491  
  Brunei Darussalam   0.8   45   5,776  
  Cambodia (2a) 59.3 (2a) 115,794   195,402  
  Indonesia   58.2   2,908,383   5,001,048  
  Lao People's Democratic Republic   28.2   33,396   118,295  
  Malaysia   43.1   457,918   1,061,421  
  Myanmar    0   0 (2a) 617,745 See Notes
  Philippines   60.8   1,686,385   2,774,368  
  Singapore   61.8   131,896   213,446  
  Thailand   17.6   426,237   2,426,577  
  Viet Nam (2a) 13.6 (2a) 274,571   2,020,413  
Commonwealth (British, Developed) (4 entries)     10.1   318,033   3,162,889  
  Australia   7.5   96,334   1,276,488  
  Canada    11.7   190,000   1,620,169 See Notes
  New Zealand   11.9   31,699   266,232  
  Tokelau (territory of New Zealand)   NA   NA   NA  
Europe (2 sub-regions)     14.9   5,526,851   37,177,470  
1. Central and Eastern Europe (22 entries)     16.6   3,582,753   21,548,806  
  Albania   19.1   23,409   122,326  
  Belarus   13.2   75,184   568,772  
  Bosnia and Herzegovina   16.7   17,511   105,137  
  Bulgaria   22.0   63,037   287,086  
  Croatia   6.5   9,752   149,853  
  Czech Republic   15.2   66,638   437,354  
  Estonia   83.8   57,842   68,985  
  Hungary   16.6   64,472   388,950  
  Kosovo  (3) 41.2 (3) 7,000 (3) 17,000 See Notes
  Latvia   93.8   105,562   112,567  
  Lithuania   11.8   23,686   201,373  
  Montenegro     NA   NA   23,786 See Notes
  Poland   32.9   705,998   2,148,676  
  Republic of Moldova   16.2   21,150   130,168  
  Romania   37.5   374,769   999,523  
  Russian Federation (2a) 14.7 (2a) 1,323,348 (2a) 8,984,977  
  Serbia   16.5   37,478   226,772  
  Slovakia   16.5   38,628   234,526  
  Slovenia   13.4   15,410   114,873  
  The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia   21.2   13,085   61,764  
  Turkey   5.2   181,829   3,529,334  
  Ukraine   13.5   356,965   2,635,004  
2. Western Europe (27 entries)     12.4   1,944,098   15,628,664  
  Andorra (4) 0 (4) 0 (2a) 475  
  Austria   16.3   56,987   350,187  
  Belgium   56.5   251,721   445,309  
  Cyprus   70.1   22,588   32,233  
  Denmark   1.8   4,253   240,536  
  Finland   18.8   57,016   303,554  
  France   19.7   442,019   2,245,097  
  Germany (1) 12.5 (1) 318,429 (1) 2,555,559  
  Gibraltar   NA   NA   NA  
  Greece    0   0   641,844 See Notes
  Holy See   NA   NA   NA  
  Iceland   19.7   3,557   18,051  
  Ireland   4.5   8,650   194,009  
  Israel  (3) 13.8 (3) 39,037 (3) 282,399 See Notes
  Italy   8.5   168,672   1,980,399  
  Liechtenstein   100   787   787  
  Luxembourg  (4) 0 (4) 0   5,376 See Notes
  Malta   0   0   10,840  
  Monaco   NA   NA   NA  
  Netherlands  (2b) 13.4 (2b) 86,951   650,905 See Notes
  Norway   14.2   31,920   224,706  
  Portugal   23.4   89,799   383,627  
  San Marino   NA   NA   937  
  Spain   14.8   278,706   1,878,973  
  Sweden   8.7   39,771   455,025  
  Switzerland   17.4   43,235   248,639  
  United Kingdom  (3) 0 (3) 0   2,479,197 See Notes
Latin America and the Caribbean (42 entries)     48.8   10,638,863   21,789,880  
  Anguilla   81.5   44 (2b) 54  
  Antigua and Barbuda   65.6   768   1,170  
  Argentina   27.1   682,618   2,520,985  
  Aruba   19.2   447   2,330  
  Bahamas   NA   NA   NA  
  Barbados  (4) 0 (4) 0 (3) 13,232 See Notes
  Belize   96.8   6,785   7,008  
  Bermuda (4) 0 (4) 0   1,269  
  Bolivia (2a) 18.8 (2a) 67,539 (2a) 359,174  
  Brazil   72.7   4,764,498   6,552,707  
  British Virgin Islands   0   0 (2a) 1,214  
  Cayman Islands (4) 0 (4) 0 (2a) 1,936  
  Chile   81.9   809,102   987,643  
  Colombia   44.6   747,125   1,674,420  
  Costa Rica (2a) 51.0 (2a) 90,527 (2a) 177,395  
  Cuba    0   0   800,873 See Notes
  Dominica   NA   NA   NA  
  Dominican Republic   53.3   198,575 (3) 372,433  
  Ecuador (2b) 35.3 (2b) 188,676 (2b) 534,522  
  El Salvador   66.6   99,841   150,012  
  Grenada   NA   NA   NA  
  Guatemala (2b) 48.6 (2b) 113,658 (2b) 233,885  
  Guyana   0   0   7,939  
  Haiti    NA   NA   NA See Notes
  Honduras   40.1   68,175   169,878  
  Jamaica   96.0   68,496   71,352  
  Mexico   32.3   918,555   2,847,376  
  Montserrat   100   61   61  
  Netherlands Antilles (2b) 90.5 (2b) 1,251 (2a) 1,383  
  Nicaragua (3) 22.6 (3) 27,587 (3) 122,111  
  Panama   36.4   50,582   139,116  
  Paraguay   69.8   157,120   225,211  
  Peru  (3) 60.5 (3) 730,368   1,150,620 See Notes
  Puerto Rico   71.3   177,803   249,372  
  Saint Kitts and Nevis   NA   NA   NA  
  Saint Lucia   16.8   331   1,973  
  Saint Vincent and the Grenadines   NA   NA   NA  
  Suriname   NA   NA (2b) 5,186  
  Trinidad and Tobago (2b) 10.0
10,648 (2a) 106,039  
  Turks and Caicos Islands   100   5   5  
  Uruguay   13.8   22,445   163,156  
  Venezuela (2a) 29.7 (2a) 635,233 (2a) 2,136,840  
United States (1 entry) United States   27.5   5,617,069   20,427,709  


Legends 


The individual 1-4 legends shown in the table are explained in the website's file "Guide to the PROPHE Dataset", section on Data Substitution Guidelines”. On this site, the legends show the type of data substitution made but do not give details on the years and figures used for the substitution; please contact PROPHE if interested in such details. See also individual country notes.


Notes

PROPHE calculated private enrollment from the UIS’ data showing total enrollment and private share. PROPHE modified UIS country names to common and usually simpler ones used by the World Bank for Bolivia, Tanzania, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, and West Bank and Gaza, and added Kosovo as a country. Countries marked with (*) are considered remaining without PHE. 

No. Country Notes  
1 Afghanistan  Afghanistan. For Afghanistan, UIS provided only 2009 and 2011 data. However the 2009 and 2011 data are too divergent from each other. For 2009 their figures would yield a 20.5% private share (19,511/95,185) whereas for 2011their figures would yield a 1.3% private share (1,298/97,504). We turned to national data (Ministry of Education, in Aturupane, 2013), which provided 2001, 2003, 2006, 2009, and 2012 data for our estimates.
2 Algeria *  Algeria.* Algeria remains one of the few most important cases of 0 PHE, the largest case, faithful to French colonial roots. By 2014, however, concrete proposals were submitted to found private universities.
3 Barbados  Although we enter the UIS’s 0% private, we know that there is PHE in Barbados. Indeed the Barbados Accreditation Council lists 25 “post-secondary/tertiary education and training providers” but the list fails to include enrollment data. All we can say is that the private share is small, surely under 10% and probably under 5% of the undergraduate level.
4 Bhutan *  We put PHE enrollment for Bhutan as 0 because UIS showed 0 PHE enrollment in 2008. Bhutan remains without PHE, though now establishment of PHE is very much discussed.
5 Botswana  UIS did not provide PHE data for Botswana until their updates in 2016, offering data from 2008 to 2014. Our current estimates use these newly available data, although we had previously done our estimates using national data for 2008 (in Molutsi, 2009) and 2010 (in Tertiary Education Council, 2012). National data shows the private share as 40.0% for 2010. Estimates using national data showed it as 16.4% for 2005 and 6.7% for 2000, which are close to current estimates using UIS data.
6 Canada  UIS shows the public sector at 1,430,169 for 2010. Canada does not gather data on its national PHE even though PHE undeniably exists. Adding PROPHE’s 190,000 estimate to the reported public figure yields our total higher education enrollment of 1,620,169 and thus our PHE share of 11.7%. Our PHE figure is a compilation of estimates for PHE’s three components. For these estimates three leading experts—Scott Davies, Glen Jones, and Hans Schuetze—were consulted through emails as well as their pertinent publications. PROPHE has sometimes compromised among their estimates, and the experts are unanimous that all PHE figures are estimates only. Private universities (what Canadians often consider higher education as opposed to post-secondary) thus enter as 35,000. Easily the largest private enrollment is in career colleges. Our 135,000 estimate is deflated as these data are gathered from only those provinces with the largest enrollment and probably omit many language and similarly specialized institutions but inflated by the inclusion of programs only loosely qualifying as post-secondary and of part-time student (with full-time equivalency data not available). The third category is CEGEP, two-year general and vocational colleges in Quebec. Although often thought of as public, these institutions have private, religious status; they thus appear somewhat akin to “private/government-dependent” (and PROPHE tabulates as private).

7 China  China. China Data is from the Ministry of Education Website. Private enrollment (http://www.moe.edu.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/s6200/201201/129597.html). Total enrollment is the sum of total undergraduate enrollment (http://www.moe.edu.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/s6200/201201/129597.html) and graduate enrollment (http://www.moe.edu.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/s6200/201201/129601.html). Although previously unavailable, China’s PHE data were recently reported by UIS as 15.5% for 2013 and 13.3% for 2014. Other government data shows a higher private share.
8 Cuba *  Cuba remains one of the two most striking global examples of 0 PHE and it remains so quite by design. Algerian higher education, the second case, is substantially larger but it appears on the verge of establishing PHE.
9 Democratic Republic of the Congo  PHE was authorized in 1989 though enabling provisions not forthcoming. We use 2002 private share of 15% from World Bank (2005) for 2010 and estimate private enrollment 2010 accordingly.
 10 Democratic People's Republic of Korea Although the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) does not appear among the 179 countries showing private and public data and the notion of any PHE appears absurd in such a totalitarian system, various web sources show that the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology apparently has functioned since roughly 2010, founded largely by a wealthy ex-political prisoner with strong Evangelical ties. The institution has international ties, official recognition without financial help, and prominently posts pictures of government leaders.
 
11 Djibouti *  Higher education lists show only the University of Djibouti, which is public.
12 Egypt  We substitute data calculated by Dr. Manar Sabry from the Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education. Although the UIS reports a plausible 18.9% PHE for 2010, it does not show data for prior years, whereas the ministry shows data over time. For consistency we use the ministry data for 2010 (actually having to substitute 2011), where UIS shows considerably higher enrollment. We include Al-Azhar University as public since that is how the ministry lists it. Similarly, as the ministry does not include the American University of Cairo in its national data we omit it, even though a reasonable case could be made that it is PHE; in any case it had only about 1,000 students in 2000, 5,000 in 2010, so it would not much affect our percentages.
13 Eritrea *  Eritrea* broke away from Ethiopia in the early 1990s. According to NOKUT (2013), the SMAP Institute of Training, Education and Consultancy is a small degree-granting college opened in 2005 offers bachelor degrees as well as diplomas. Also functioning is British International Institute but through a branch institute.
14 Gabon  We use the Gabon 2003 figures from Mi-Eya (2003). Number of private HEIs is from World Bank (2009).
15 Greece *  Greece remains listed as 0 PHE and that continues to be consistent with national legislation. However, as widely written about, there is ample de facto and international PHE in Greece.
16 Haiti  We do have data on Haiti but from 1978 and thus choose not to enter it to substitute for NA in all the years of our dataset. The 1978 data (Levy, 1986) are 377 private out of a total of 4,186, for a 9.0% private share.
17 India  The India note must comment on two key points. One concerns the sources and estimations of data. The other concerns the inclusion in PHE of a publicly-funded private subsector. 
Even as late as 2010 and slightly beyond, UIS provides no PHE data for India. Our main alternative source is the partnership of India’s Higher Education Planning Commission, FICCI, and Ernst & Young, publications and personal communications with Ernst and Young’s Amitabh Jinghan and Keshav Kanoria as the Commission’s Pawal Agarwal. Because the only years with data are 2001, 2007, and 2012, we estimate our 2000, 2005, and 2010 figures based on the available years. A new data source is the All India Survey but it provides only 2007 and 2012 and does not differ radically from the partnership data: 55.3% compared to 58.9% for 2012, though with lower absolute figures. Additionally, all these figures exclude distance education, which accounts for 4.1 million enrollments 2012, of which only about 6% are PHE. If we add in distance education for the same year, PHE’s overall share falls from 58.9 to 50.6%. 
Regarding PHE inclusiveness, observers sometimes refer to higher education as either self-financed or government-funded. But the latter includes still legally private colleges, generally affiliated to universities, and operating on public funding. In their early years such colleges were generally self-financed but in the 1960s, system expansion was increasingly fueled by public funds with accompanying government control. This very much fits our government-dependent category, most often seen in Europe. It is also consistent with PROPHE’s general policy of counting as private anything defined nationally as legally private.

18 Iraq  UIS unfortunately shows no data for 2000-2010, though it does for 1999. Furthermore, it puts 0 PHE for 2013 but this is at odds with much evidence of active PHE. Multiple international and domestic web sources show roughly two dozen private institutions, many recognized by the Ministry of Higher Education. For example, 29 "private universities" are listed for 2012 (The Connection, 2012) and this and other lists often leave to the side private universities in Kurdistan. None of these sources gives enrollment figures, however. We therefore keep the private share (39.5%) the UIS showed in its only prior data year, 1999, while using the UIS's 2013 total enrollment (538,125) along with the UIS 1999 total enrollment to estimate total enrollment for our in between years. Of course figures given for countries suffering huge turmoil must be regarded very cautiously.
19 Israel  Israeli data and interpretation come via PROPHE’s Dr. Gury Zilkha. Excluded are part-time students at the Open University (over 35,000 by 2010). Two problems plague the data shown by UIS (2000: 218,563/255,891 =85.4% private; 2005: 262,786/ 310,937 = 84.5%; 2010 307,213/360,378 = 85.2%). The main one is that it counts Israel’s universities as private government-dependent. Although they are incorporated as nonprofit, they are public in the same sense we report for the UK and in parallel to U.S. state universities. Additionally, UIS includes (roughly 60,000) non-academic post-secondary enrollments that should not be considered higher education.
20 Kosovo  UIS provides no data on Kosovo, as a divided UN does not officially recognize it, though many countries do. We use raw enrollment data (provided by A. Papadimitriou) from the NORGLOBAL project. But these come from institutional responses at only two universities and we are unclear about how many higher education institutions should be included. The round numbers also raise red flags. However, the NORGLOBAL share (41.2%) approximates that in Zgaga et al.’s (2013) study on the West Balkans, which reports its sources as national statistics offices. Zgaga does not give raw enrollment but its national shares match or are within 2% of the UIS shares on 5 other West Balkan countries, differing by more only on Montenegro.
21 Luxembourg *  Luxembourg remains listed as 0, though it is not clear whether some enrollment should be government-dependent private. In any case, the country’s total higher education enrollment is in our very small category, under 10,000.
22 Mauritania  Although UIS still shows 0 PHE in Mauritania in 2013, several private higher education institutions have been created recently (Sawahel, 2015).
23 Montenegro 

Though PROPHE lacked PHE data for Montenegro in its 2010 dataset and calculations (and the UIS lacked such data at least through 2016), Papadimitriou, Levy, Stensaker, & Kanazir (2017) show 20.2% (4,283/ 21,199) for 2010.

24 Myanmar *  Myanmar remains without PHE, though now its establishment is very much discussed.
25 Netherlands  For the Netherlands, UIS totals for each year are unproblematic but private shares are very problematic and would be so no matter which option we choose. The UIS provides the private share for only 2012, 13.4%, without explaining the sudden inclusion or the basis for the 13.4% figure. We use that percentage along with the UIS total to calculate the private enrollment for 2010. OECD provides the figures for 2000, showing a 69.0% private share, which appears consistent with scholarship on the country, highlighting similarities to the Belgian case (Geiger 1986). We then estimate the 2005 private share simply (too simply) by taking the mid-point between the 2000 and 2010 private shares, and again we use the UIS total enrollment. Of course the decade did not see the private share decline drastically and steadily in the sense of intersectoral enrollment shifts. The apparent decline comes instead from volatile treatment of whether the bulk (or even entirety) of the institutions are private or public. European datasets do not indicate why their majority private enrollment in 2000 changed in 2003 (OECD and 2004 EUROSTAT) to 100% private or why this flipped to 100% public in 2008 (OECD and 2010 EUROSTAT). The European organizations in question normally follow the breakdown provided by the country, according to the organization’s written criteria. But the domestic perspective is complex and ambiguous. Dutch law might appear to consider all institutions private, according to expert Gerrit de Jager (personal communication, October 17, 2012), but he ultimately concludes that whether now to categorize Dutch higher education as private or public is “a matter of taste.” Clearer is that if the institutions are private, they were at least historically government-dependent. Karl Dittrich (2009) of the Dutch accreditation agency reports around 10% as the current private independent figure; this includes the 70 “registered universities” (essentially professional schools), privately funded, while excluding theological ones and universities of applied sciences. This percentage approximates our UIS-based estimate for 2010. Perhaps our 2010 figure represents “independent private” while our 2000 figure represents “government-dependent private.”
26 Nigeria  Nigerian data—for universities only—from the National Universities Commission’s Taiwo Adeola (email 10/30/12) and the University of Ibadan’s Segun Olugbenga (emails of September/October 2013).
27 Pakistan 

Pakistan data are from Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission. These figures include distance education but not colleges, madrassahs, or self-study students. We use HEC rather than UIS data partly because the UIS data on colleges likely includes 11th and 12th grade enrollment and mostly because the UIS shows private increases and private shares implausibly high according to expert opinion, including that of Sohail Naqvi, ex-director of HEC. UIS shows a private leap from 2005 to 2008, 8.0 to 32.9% (no data shown for 2006-2007). UIS’ gross exaggeration of the private share runs from 2008-2012 but from 2013 resumes showing a reasonable figure.

It is unfortunate that HEC data omits colleges but the omission probably does not greatly affect the HEC private share. College and university shares were roughly equal in number in the last year (2006) for which we can see them separately in World Bank’s summary of the country’s higher education (World Bank, no date shown); that breakdown showed the private share of colleges at only 8.9% (consistent with expert opinion that college enrollment remains decisively public), so the inclusion of colleges in 2010 would not move us far from our 15.0% private figure. (What would significantly change our private percentage (from our 14.5 to 25.5%) would be exclusion of distance education, all public-- despite now getting less than one-tenth of its income from government.


28 Peru  Peru’s total higher education data are from UIS. But PROPHE takes the private share (60.5%) 473,795/782,970) from the latest national data (Censo Nacional Universitario, 2010) and then calculates a 2010 private number accordingly.
29 Saudi Arabia  For Saudi Arabia, the UIS provides private data (as 0) for 2000 but not for 2005; for 2010 it shows 34,944/903,567, 3.9%. Though we could derive 2005 from the UIS’ own 2003 figures, the 2003 shows PHE at an unlikely all-time high in enrollment (35,440) and share 6.7% (versus its UIS 0.0% 2000 and 3.9% 2010). The ministry’s annual figures show a much more steady increase in private enrollment and share. (Our data include only undergraduate figures; the graduate figures would constitute only a few percent of the total and are erratic.)
30 Sierra Leone  Some reports indicate as many as 24 private higher education institutions operating by 2011 vs 0 in 2004. An authorizing act was issued in 2005 but no institution was yet registered with the Tertiary Education Commission. There is also word of one private “university” and with an estimate of 3,758 or 15% of enrollment.
31 South Africa  PHE data for South Africa 2010 provided by Dr. Shaheeda Essack of the Department of Higher Education and Training and UIS public figures.
32 Sri Lanka  UIS puts 0 PHE for 2010, with an enrollment figure for the public sector. For previous years, it gave NA across the board. By 2013 UIS shows figures for each sector, with a 6.5% private share. Thus, Sri Lanka recently left the zero PHE group but should be counted on our 2010 list of systems with zero PHE.
33 Syrian Arab Republic  UIS provides only total enrollment data. We use the private share of 6% for 2010 from Saïd (2013), based on which we estimate the 2010 private enrollment.
34 Tajikistan  Tajikistan. UIS shows that Tajikistan has recently established PHE, though we maintain the UIS’ zero for 2010. PHE is very limited, tottering on a political-legal edge (Hasanova, 2010).
35 Turkmenistan *  UIS shows no higher education data, and though we read of the private International Turkman-Turkish University, Tursunkulova (2005) says there is no PHE. In any case the one private institution was shut down in 2016. (http://catoday.org/centrasia/28461-v-ashhabade-zakryli-mezhdunarodnyy-turkmeno-tureckiy-universitet.html). PROPHE’s dataset maintains the UIS zero.
36 Uganda  For Uganda, in accord with our data substituting guidelines, we interpolate UIS data in surrounding years (2009 and 2011 for 2010, and 1999, 2004, and 2008 for 2005 and 2000) but we have two concerns. First, the UIS 2004 public HE enrollment figure (79,443) seems possibly too high compared to later years (64,510 in 2008, 74,187 in 2009, and 74,729 in 2011). If so, then the PHE share (10.1%) for 2005 would be too low. Separate data for 2004 (Mabizela, 2007) likewise indicate (12,400/64,052 for 15.0% private) that the UIS public sum is too high, its private share too low, as may a chapter in Varghese (2006) though there are issues about how non-university figures in there. The second concern is that the UIS’ private share jumps so drastically, from 10.1% in 2004 to 40.1% in 2009 and 74.2% in 2011. But the World Bank’s Peter Darvas advises that their estimates are similarly high and country expert Prof. Vincent Ssembatya of Makerere University thinks the soaring private share may be credible, his email on January 23, 2014 pointing to the recency of the sector and the great attention it starting attracting in the mid-2000s.
37 United Arab Emirates  Not until 2016 did UIS show private data (68.6% for 2013 and 67.3% for 2014). In terms of total enrollment, UIS shows higher figures than the National Bureau of Statistics (132,709 for 2013 and 143,060 for 2014 compared to 118,560 and 128,279 respectively). The discrepancy might have been because the national data exclude foreign student enrollment (Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, 2008). While we use the UIS data for total enrollment, we estimate the private share based on the national data for 2007 and 2013.
38 United Kingdom  For the UK, UIS shows no private-public breakdown and, worse, counts the total enrollment as private. It is one thing to count the UIS’ private, government-dependent enrollment as private in countries like Belgium, where the reality of PHE has long been recognized. But both popular discourse and scholarly treatments of the UK have routinely counted virtually all higher education enrolment as public, often noting the exception of one small private university, the University of Buckingham (Geiger, 1986). Neave (1985) declares it erroneous to call UK higher education private. Only in 2011 did the UK officially open higher education to additional private providers, including, for-profit, and even university ones, making a dual-sector system undeniable. (See especially Fielden & Middlehurst (2017) with special attention to England but also Fielden & Middlehurst (2011) more generally on the UK.) To count UK enrolment as 100% private (which the UIS does at least through 2015) because its public universities have charters, governing boards, ample private finance, or other such autonomy-related characteristics would require that we take U.S., Developed British Commonwealth, Israeli, and probably a few other countries’ public university enrolment as private.
38 Uzbekistan *  Tursunkulova in Altbach and Levy (2005) says there is de facto as opposed to legally recognized PHE. Westminster International University in Tashkent is a cross-border institution. But as of 2012 there was still no domestic PHE, though 1997 legislation permits it (World Bank, 2014).

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