There were 3,447 graduates from 35 upper secondary schools with a matriculation exam during the 2019-2020 school year, 372 fewer than in the previous year (-9.7%). More than one-half (56.5%) of graduates with a matriculation exam were 19 years old or younger, but 15.6% were 20 years old. The proportion of graduates under the age of 20 has increased sharply in recent years while the proportion of graduates who graduate when they are 20 years old has fallen, due to changes in the requirements which shorten the time needed to complete this examination from four years to three (figure 1).
Women were 59.5% of those completing the matriculation exam. The ratio of all students graduating with the matriculation exam to 20 year olds in the population was 73.3%, but was 86.3% in 2017-2018 when this ratio was the highest it has ever been.
More graduates with the school certificate from the certified trades but fewer with most other diplomas at the upper secondary level
In 2019-2020, there were 628 graduations with the journeyman’s exam, a similar number as in the previous year. On the other hand, the number of graduations with a school certificate from the certified trades increased from 743 to 868, or by 16.8%. Fewer students graduated with various other diplomas of competence and vocational certificates at the upper secondary level than in the previous year. Graduated masters of a certified trade were 223, slightly more than in the previous school year.
A total of 5,303 students graduated with 6,124 graduations from the upper secondary level of education during the school year 2019-2020, 349 fewer than in the previous year (-6.2%). In addition, 689 students graduated from the post-secondary non-tertiary level of education.
More graduates from the tertiary level
There were 4,514 graduates with 4,547 graduations at the tertiary level of education during the 2019-2020 school year, 144 more than in the previous year (3.3%). There were 2,497 graduations with a first tertiary degree, 457 graduations with a diploma after a Bachelor’s degree and 1,414 graduations with a master’s degree. The number of Ph.D. graduates decreased from 101 to 72 from the previous year (figure 2). As in recent years, females were around two out of three graduates with a tertiary degree, or 66.2%.
64.7% of new entrants graduated from tertiary education within ten years
In the autumn of 2010 there were 3,878 new entrants in tertiary education in Iceland. Ten years later 64.3% of those entrants had graduated from tertiary education, more than two percentage points less than two years earlier, when these data were last published. A total of 67.3% of females, who started university studies in 2010, had graduated but 60.5% of male students.