The number of Taiwanese with a college, university or other type of higher education degree has increased every year to 39 percent of the population in 2009, statistics released by the Ministry of the Interior showed on Saturday.
Compared with other countries, Taiwan’s higher-education population is higher than the average of 30 percent of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development member states.
It ties with South Korea’s 39 percent, but is lower than Japan’s 44 percent, the findings show.
Taiwan’s higher-education population also is lower than Canada’s 49 percent, the US’ 41 percent and New Zealand’s 40 percent.
However, it is higher than Germany’s 26 percent of the population, Britain’s 37 percent, France’s 30 percent, Switzerland’s 35 percent, Norway’s 37 percent and Sweden’s 33 percent.
The statistics on the education level of people over 15 years of age show that by the end of last year, 38.2 percent of such Taiwanese were holders of degrees from colleges or universities, while 32.3 percent were high school or vocational high-school graduates.
About 7.53 million Taiwanese had completed their higher education as of Dec. 31 last year, Ministry officials said.
The percentage of people in Taiwan who have obtained a higher education degree has increased by 15.2 percentage points over the past 10 years amid a drop in the illiterate population, which fell to 1.8 percent at the end of last year, officials said.
In terms of demographics, 28.7 percent of Taiwanese men aged above 40 completed higher education, while 20 percent of Taiwanese women older than 40 completed higher education.
However, the percentage of women younger than 40 years old and with a degree reached 57.2 percent, higher than the 53.3 percent of men in the same age group holding a degree, government statistics show.
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