Data on number of students enrolled in tertiary education by education level, programme orientation, sex and field of education (e.g. crop and livestock production, horticulture, forestry, Fisheries, chemical and process, food processing, etc.).

Countries participating in this collection are compiling their data according to the concepts and definitions of the UOE data collection manuals on education systems statistics.

In the UOE data collection on education statistics, the statistical units collected are students enrolled, entrants, graduates, mobile students enrolled and graduated, education personnel and expenditure. In the Eurostat data collection on language learning the statistical unit is enrolments in studies of foreign languages.

The following implementing regulations specify the details for data collection: From school year 2012-2013 onwards: Commission Regulation (EU) No 912/2013 of 23 September 2013 as regards statistics on education and training systems; School year 2010-2011 and 2011-2012: Commission Regulation (EU) No 88/2011 of 2 February 2011 as regards statistics on education and training systems.

The main source of data is the joint UIS (UNESCO Institute of Statistics)/OECD/Eurostat (UOE) questionnaires on education statistics, which constitute the core database on education. The UOE data collection is an administrative data collection that is administered jointly by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation - Institute for Statistics (UNESCO-UIS), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the Statistical Office of the European Union (EUROSTAT). Data on regional enrolments and foreign language learning are collected additionally by Eurostat.

Data are collected through data collection tables in electronic questionnaires that are returned by countries to a unique e-mail address (estat-uoe-joint@ec.europa.eu). EU, EFTA and Candidate countries should use eDAMIS for sending the data that will be automatically forwarded to the unique e-mail address mentioned above. Afterwards Eurostat makes all data available to OECD and UNESCO via a restricted CIRCABC space. The international organisations process and verify the data after their reception.