The line graph illustrates how many years adult males and females spent in school in Singapore at 2-year intervals, while the accompanying pie charts compare the level of the highest educational achievement.
Overall, the average duration of formal education undertaken by both men and women rose steadily from 2000 to 2010. It is also clear that adult males averaged more years at school than adult females throughout the period. Lastly, university, diploma and professional qualifications exhibited an upward trajectory, whereas the reverse was true for the remaining qualifications – namely below-secondary and secondary attainment .
The figures for adult males and females rose annually, albeit with males consistently outnumbering females over the given period. In 2000, the adult males started at 9.2, while females spent 8.0 years. By 2004, the figure for men increased by 0.6 years, while that for women saw a negligible increase of 0.2 years. By the end of the period, the figures for both genders reached an all-time high, with men at 10.5 years and women at 9.1 years.
In contrast , the distribution of educational qualifications in 2000 was relatively balanced, with below secondary, secondary, diploma and professional and university qualifications each representing roughly 25%. While the university qualification accounted for 21% 2000, it surged to 44.1% in 2010, surpassing over all other categories. Similarly, there was a substantial increase from 27.6% in 2000 to 33.9% in 2010. However, the trends for below-secondary and secondary were reversed. The former plummeted from 23.6% in 2000 to 8.6% in 2010, while the latter dropped from 27.7% to 13.4% in the final year.