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- More than 5-million South Africans have a post-school qualification
- The most popular field of study is education, especially for women (72%)
- Women are making inroads in engineering, with the proportion of women qualifying in it approaching a quarter
There are 5-million people in South Africa who have a tertiary qualification – about 2-million more than there were in 2011, according to the latest Census. The most popular field of study in 2022 was education (almost 800,000), followed by engineering (630,000) and business, economics and management sciences (610,000). Although the number of women studying education still outstrips the number of men by 40%, there’s been a shift in engineering in the past decade. It may be male-dominated (78%), but the proportion of female engineers has grown from 15% to 22%. Women don't seem to be making much headway in computer and information science, however. The proportion of women qualifying in this field has dropped from 43% to 39%.
— 24 October, 2023Subscribe to the weekly newsletter for more charts like this
