Educational programmes that children and young people are legally obliged to attend, usually defined in terms of a number of grades or an age range, or both.
UNESCO. Education for all: literacy for life; EFA global monitoring report, 2006. Paris: UNESCO, 2006.
If practice in most countries is followed, then the particular age(s) or grade levels(s) selected for a national assessment will fall within the period of compulsory education (most likely at primary-school level); furthermore, students will have been in school long enough for education to have had an impact. (Kellaghan and Greaney, 2002: 86).
Kellaghan, Thomas, et Vincent Greaney. Using assessment to improve the quality of education. Fundamentals of Educational Planning 71. Paris: UNESCO-IIEP, 2001.