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Australians more educated than ever: national survey

Xinhua, November 27, 2015 Adjust font size:

More Australians are studying for university degrees and trade certificates than ever before, a new national survey has found.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released data on Friday which showed almost six out of 10 Australians have a specialized, post-school qualification - 59 percent having finished, or being currently engaged in, a non-school qualification.

Non-school qualifications encompass all university standard courses (bachelor degrees and diplomas) as well as vocational courses completed outside of high school, such as trade certificates.

The ABS data, from May this year, showed that more than one-quarter of the Australian public had a bachelor degree (17 percent), post-graduate degree (5.6 percent) or diploma (3 percent).

Also, Australian women continued to pursue a university education in far greater numbers than their male counterparts.

"Since 1990, the proportion of working aged women (15-64 years) with a degree has increased four-fold from around 7 percent to 29 percent, while the proportion of men has increased more slowly from 10 percent to 24 percent," Michelle Marquardt, program manager of the ABS Education, Crime & Culture department, said in a statement on Friday.

"In those 25 years, the proportion of women of this age group with a qualification rose from 34 percent to 60 percent while the proportion of men with a qualification increased from 45 percent to 61 percent."

The ABS report estimated around 3 million Australians aged 15 to 64 were enrolled in some form of study, or almost one in five (19 percent) of the bracket.

Of that group, the two most popular courses of study were related to management and commerce (23 percent of enrollments) closely followed by society and culture (21 percent).

For non-Australians, exactly three-quarters (75 percent) of the nation's temporary residents who weren't on a student visa -- rather a tourist or working visa -- had a non-school qualification, a higher average than Australian natives.

The ABS report also found with every increase in the age bracket -- 15-19, 20-24, 25-29, and so on -- fewer people were still partaking in study or educational training. Endit