Most of the top 20 countries by proportion of STEM tertiary graduates belong to the developing world, showing how policy-makers in emerging economies are trying to use the promotion of technical subjects to foster innovation and economic development.
In 2022, Malaysia had the greatest share (40.2%) of its higher education graduates with a degree in a STEM subject, according to fDi analysis of figures compiled by Unesco through an annual global survey of formal education. This analysis only includes countries with a population of at least 50,000.
The next highest reported Stem graduate shares in 2022 were in Turkmenistan (39.6%), Tunisia (37.9%) and Trinidad and Tobago (35.4%). Some countries included in the top 20 had no data for 2022 due to not participating in Unesco’s latest survey of formal education. The next available year was used in these cases including Oman, where 39.5% of graduates studied Stem subjects in 2021, Iran (39% in 2020) and Brunei (38.4% in 2020).
