Taipei: Multiple education indicators in Taiwan surpassed both global and East Asian averages across all levels of education in 2024, according to a report released by the Ministry of Education (MOE) on Jan. 22. The report highlighted Taiwan’s impressive education completion rates, with 100 percent for primary education, 99.69 percent for lower secondary education, and 98.81 percent for upper secondary education. These figures stand in contrast to the global averages of 88.1 percent, 78.1 percent, and 59.6 percent, respectively.
According to Focus Taiwan, in East and Southeast Asia, the average completion rates were noted as 98 percent for primary education, 90.7 percent for lower secondary education, and 73.3 percent for upper secondary education, based on data from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics (UIS). Additionally, Taiwan reported significantly lower rates of over-age students, defined as those at least two years older than the official age for their grade, with 0.01 percent in primary and 0.04 percent in lower secondary education. These numbers are well below the global averages of 9.93 percent and 9.35 percent, and the East and Southeast Asia averages of 3.8 percent and 5.73 percent, respectively.
Taiwan’s gross enrollment ratio for tertiary education reached 94.35 percent, a substantial lead over the global average of 43.61 percent and the East Asia average of 76.1 percent, as per data from the MOE and the UIS. Gender equality in education, measured by the adjusted gender parity index (GPIA), showed Taiwan achieving full gender parity at the primary, lower secondary, and upper secondary levels with a GPIA of 1.0. For tertiary gross enrollment, Taiwan’s GPIA was 1.08, slightly lower than the global average of 1.12 and the East Asia average of 1.11.