The International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) has been designed as an instrument suitable for assembling, compiling, and presenting statistics of education both within individual countries and internationally. The classification is designed for assembling data on current educational phenomena such as enrollment, teaching staff and finances as well as for statistics on the number of educated people as obtained, for example, by a census of population. ISCED can be applied to data from a wide range of sources covering all aspects of educational phenomena. It is intended to cover education for all types of students and for all age groups. Categories in ISCED have been based on two principal educational criteria, the level and the subject-matter content of study. Levels are from 0 (from age 3) to 8 (postgraduate degrees) and 9 (not definable by level), with two-digit program subdivisions in each level. An additional two-digit code designates specific subject content, thereby creating a five-digit code. An alphabetical index gives complete five-digit codes for level-program content in all subject areas. (Author/LS)