Sunday, September 19, 2010

Majority of world now educated

The WorldWatch Institute reports that educational attainment is steadily rising worldwide. In 2010, worldwide, over 61 percent of adults (15 and older) finished at least some secondary school (high school) during their lifetimes. This had been 36 percent back in 1970 and 50 percent as recently as 1990 (see chart I made.) This leaves now only about 1 in 10 adult males and 1 in 5 adult females worldwide who have had no schooling whatsoever.



Besides the fact that education should be considered an a priori good in and of itself, rising levels of education help push forward so many other secret peace trends. As I mentioned in a recent post, I believe a major force pushing peace forward is the spread of information to a wider base of people. With more information in the world, and more people able to access it and understand it, those people are also now able to process it and generate their own new knowledge, contributing to the virtuous cycle.

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