Chinese people of working age are becoming better educated, with 15.8 percent of them having received some form of higher education, said the Ministry of Education on Thursday.
Enrollment rates from preschool up to university have reached or exceeded the average level of high- and middle- income countries, according to an assessment report on China's educational reform and development.
Hu Angang, an economics professor at Tsinghua University, said that although China faces falling working population which marks the end of a demographic dividend, the country is entering a phase of promoting education and human resources.
According to Hu, the country's working-age population (aged between 16 and 64) dropped from 74.5 percent of the total in 2010 to 73.4 percent in 2014.
However, from 2010 to 2014, people with college degree or above rose to 11 percent of the population, up 2.3 percentage points, and people with high school education level increased to 16.4 percent, up 2.6 percentage points.