Students choose technology, agriculture is "abandoned"/ Number of higher education graduations increases for the 2023-24 school year

Data from the Institute of Statistics on graduation statistics show a decline in the number of graduates during the 2023-24 school year. During this period, 82,712 pupils and students graduated from formal education. The decline in the number of graduates is observed at all levels of education.

These data are mainly influenced by demographic changes and the aging of the population, but also as a result of emigration for study purposes. According to the processed figures, the graduation rates of students in 9-year education, during the 2023-24 school year, have decreased by 2.7%, those in secondary education have decreased by 1.3%, while graduates in higher education have experienced a slight increase of 0.7%.

"Scan Intel" has analyzed which fields of study have recorded the largest decline in the number of graduates.

Figures show that the largest annual decline for the past academic year was recorded by graduates in the field of "Agriculture, forestry, fishing and veterinary science" with 18.7%.

A decrease in the number of graduates is also observed in fields such as "Natural Sciences and Mathematics and Statistics" by 18%; and "Educational Sciences" by 7.8%.

What is striking is that in the academic year 2023-24, the highest increase in the number of graduates was in the field of "Engineering, manufacturing and construction" with about 9.8%, followed by "Health and Welfare" with 5.9%. The largest increase in the number of graduates is observed in the field of study of ICT with 14.1%, which is a sector with a large job market and high salaries. There was also an increase in graduations in "Social sciences, journalism and information" with 2.4%.

The "Scan Intel" analysis also includes preferred fields by gender during the 2023-2024 academic year. During this period, female graduates outnumbered men by 65.8%.

Women dominated in Social Sciences, Journalism and Information with 83.0%, Educational Sciences with 81.7% and Health and Welfare with 78.9%

Meanwhile, men dominated in Services with 67.3%, Engineering, manufacturing and construction with 63.1%, Information and communication technology (ICT) with 56.2%.