Ideally, there should be a global statistical picture of TVET presenting, for every country in the world, data such as: (1) Enrolment rates by gender, age and programme; (2) The relative proportions of people enrolled in general and vocational programmes; (3) The relative proportions enrolled in programmes provided by enterprises, government and other agencies (NGO, private providers, etc.); (4) Class size; (5) On-the-job versus classroom-based provision; and (6) Sources of finance for TVET.... to name but a few potential indicators. So why is this not possible? The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) is the lead United Nations agency for educational statistics. UIS publishes statistics annually for the vast majority of countries in the world from early childhood provision to tertiary level. UIS is the lead agency for monitoring progress towards the Education for All goals and the Millennium Development Goals concerning education. This article discusses different levels of ISCED: (1) ISCED 2: lower secondary, when students start to specialize and are normally taught for the first time by subject teachers, usually 2 years in duration; (2) ISCED 3: upper secondary, when almost all teaching is by subject, usually of 2-3 years duration; (3) ISCED 4: post-secondary non-tertiary education--generally, of 1-2 years duration; and (4) ISCED 5: tertiary education, including advanced occupationally specific skills, usually of 3 years duration. This paper has presented some broad conclusions regarding the global situation for public sector provisions of TVET, as well as some methodological limitations of existing international data. (Contains 1 figure and 3 notes.)