A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said.
Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed.
Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data showed.
By gender, the male literacy rate was 99.9 percent, slightly higher than the female rate of 98.9 percent, the figures showed.
However, the female literacy rate has steadily increased from 97.7 percent at the end of 2016, rising 1.2 percentage points over the past decade, while the male rate edged up only 0.2 points, gradually narrowing the gender gap, the ministry said.
Ministry data also showed that as of the end of last year, the majority of Taiwanese had postsecondary education or higher, totaling 10.602 million people, or 51.4 percent, of the population.
Among them, 6.458 million held a university degree, 2.237 million had a junior college degree and 1.907 million had a graduate degree, the ministry said.
Those with a high school or vocational education numbered 5.955 million (28.9 percent), junior-high education 2.208 million (10.7 percent) and elementary education 1.696 million (8.2 percent), it said.
By gender, at the end of last year, 53.3 percent of men had attained postsecondary education or higher, compared with 49.7 percent of women, it said.
Among those aged 50 and older, men had a higher rate of postsecondary education than women, while the trend was reversed for those younger than 50.
Men also had a higher proportion of graduate degrees.
The number of women with graduate degrees reached 786,000, increasing 48.1 percent over the past decade and at a faster pace than men, which rose 34.8 percent, the ministry said.
Worldwide, based on OECD statistics as of the end of 2024, the average higher education attainment rate for people aged 25 to 64 was 43 percent. Taiwan was well above the average at 60 percent, which rose further to 61 percent at the end of last year.
Among major countries, Taiwan’s higher education rate ranked second only to Canada’s 65 percent, surpassing Japan (57 percent), South Korea (56 percent), the UK (54 percent), Australia (53 percent), Sweden (52 percent), the US (51 percent), Israel (51 percent), the Netherlands (45 percent), France (43 percent), Germany (34 percent), and the Czech Republic (27 percent), it said.
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