Hindus have the highest level of schooling in countries where they are a religious minority: Study

A demographic study, issued by Pew Research Centre on Tuesday, has found that Hindus have the highest level of schooling in countries where they are a religious minority. However, members of the community continue to have the lowest level of educational attainment of any major religious groups studied, the report added.

The research also found that in India, where Hindus make up a majority of the population, 59% of the community have at least some form of formal schooling. While 10% of Hindus in India have post-secondary degrees, 87% of the community hold similar higher educational qualifications in North America and 57% in Europe.

In North America, Europe and the Latin American-Carribbean region, however, nearly all Hindus have undergone some schooling. The study further found that 93% of the community members in Sub-Saharan Africa have at least some formal schooling, significantly higher than the 59% of the non-Hindus in the region.

Moreover, the educational gender gap among Hindus was found to be the widest when compared to other religious groups worldwide. Globally, Hindu men have an average of 6.9 years of school education, as compared to the 4.2 years that Hindu women have access to. At least 53% of Hindu women have had no formal education, while the figure stands at 29% for Hindu men. “The gender gap in higher education is narrower, but Hindu men are still nearly twice as likely as women to have post-secondary degrees (13% vs 7%),” the study said.

The skewed gender ratio in the community is relatively better outside the Asia-Pacific region. In Latin America and the Caribbean, Hindu men and women have nearly the same number of schooling years. In North America, the divide is an average of one year in school education. In post-secondary education, 92% of Hindu men have access to education, as compared to 80% of the community’s women. The figures are similar in Europe, according to the Pew Research.