The number of people with undergraduate degrees in Taiwan topped 5 million for the first time at the end of last year, accounting for nearly 25 percent of the nation’s population, government statistics released on Saturday showed.
As of the end of last year, the number of people aged 14 years or older in Taiwan was 20.3 million, 42.68 percent of whom had a tertiary education or higher, the Ministry of the Interior said.
People who had not obtained higher than a senior-high school education accounted for 30.92 percent of the population, and those who had not obtained higher than a junior-high school education accounted for 12.53 percent, the ministry said.
Due mainly to an increase in the number of universities in Taiwan, the number of people with undergraduate degrees rose to 5.06 million as of the end of 2015, up from 2.82 million in 2005, it said.
Meanwhile, as a percentage of the population aged 15 years or older, the number of people who hold an undergraduate degree increased from 15.26 percent to 24.92 percent during the 10-year period, the ministry said.
The percentage of the population aged 14 or older who hold graduate degrees also rose from 3.11 percent to 6.4 percent over the same period, the data showed.
As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 1.3 million people with graduate degrees, compared with 570,000 in 2005, the ministry said.
In 2014, 45 percent of the population aged 25 to 64 had received a tertiary education, compared with the average of 33 percent among other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member nations.
Compared with other OECD nations, Taiwan trailed Canada (54 percent) and Israel (49 percent) and was close to South Korea (45 percent) and the US (44 percent).
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching