Mean years of schooling
Topic: Measuring Development: Income, HDI and Sustainability · NCERT: Class 10, Ch 1 "Development"; Class 11, Ch 8 "Comparative Development Experiences of India and its Neighbours"
Meaning
Mean years of schooling (MYS) is the average number of years of education that people aged 25 and older have completed. It measures the education stock of today's adults. Together with expected years of schooling, it forms the education part of the Human Development Index (HDI). In the HDI its goalposts are 0 and 15 years.
Formula (HDI): MYS index = (actual MYS − 0) ÷ (15 − 0)
Example
In HDR 2025 (data year 2023), India's MYS was 6.9 years. That gives an MYS index of 6.9 ÷ 15 = 0.460, which makes schooling the weakest part of India's HDI. Sri Lanka's MYS was 10.8 years. MYS is counted in years, not in %, and it covers people aged 25+, not 15+.
Don't confuse with
- Expected years of schooling (EYS): this is the schooling a child entering school today can expect to get. India's EYS is 13.0, against a goalpost of 18. MYS looks back at adults. EYS looks ahead for children.