Following is a response from Senior DHS Specialist, Gulnara Semenov:

Thank you for your questions and your interest with The DHS Program and the 2012 Kyrgyz Republic DHS.

Standard recode V106 has the same categories across DHS surveys.

0-No education
1-Primary
2-Secondary
3-Higher

In the 2012 Kyrgyz DHS for educational categories we used the 1997 National educational system classification according to the UNESCO International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED or MCKO in Russian) that was provided to us by the implementing agency. This classification is available at http://uis.unesco.org/en/isced-mappings.

In this classification, Professional Primary and Professional Middle are classified as post-secondary levels. Professional Primary is higher than Secondary general level, but is considered as a non-tertiary level. Professional Middle, University degree (i.e. bachelor's degree) and Master's degree are all considered as First stage of tertiary education. Ph.D. is the Secondary stage of tertiary level. So according to this classification, in the standard recode file, any level of education attained/completed that is higher than Secondary (basically >grade 11) have been combined together under variable "higher".

The Standard Recode variable is there for purposes of comparing across countries, but you can choose to group them how you find it necessary for your research purpose. For example, In the 2012 Kyrgyz Republic DHS final report, educational categories are standardized according to the levels of education used in country classification and country specific needs, kindly see below. You can download the full report from our website at https://www.dhsprogram.com/publications/publication-FR283-DH S-Final-Reports.cfm.



Thank you for the opportunity to answer your questions and let me know if you have any further questions.