RIO DE JANEIRO – Just over 50 percent of Brazilians age 25 and older did not complete the eight years of basic education, compared with 65.3 percent in 1998, a survey by the IBGE statistics institute shows.

Over the past decade, the IBGE noted, the proportion of Brazilians with a secondary school education has risen to 21.5 percent.

Nearly 14.9 percent of college-age people in Brazil are currently enrolled in universities, double the percentage in 1998 but still far behind countries such as France, Spain, Britain and Chile, where the proportion is more than 50 percent.

The IBGE report also documented that while women in Brazil tend to have more schooling than men, they still earn less than male colleagues in the workplace, even when doing the same job.

Among Brazilians over 60, more than half – 51.7 percent – are functionally illiterate, with less than four years of education on average, the study found.

Children and adolescents represent the most vulnerable age group in Brazil, according to the IBGE, which said that nearly 45 percent of people 17 and under live in poverty. EFE