Here are some fast facts on education thanks to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)

According to the Survey of Education and Work, in 2006, 59% of Australians aged 25-64 years had a non-school qualification, up from 46% in 1990. This was largely due to an increase in the proportion of people in this age group whose highest non-school qualification was a Bachelor degree or above, from 10% in 1990 to 24% in 2006.
Source: ABS 1990-2006 Surveys of Education and Work.

Despite the overall increase in the proportion of the Australian population with a non-school qualification, improvements in educational attainment have not been evenly distributed across different geographic regions. While there was an increase between 1996 and 2006 in the proportion of people with a non-school qualification across all geographic regions, the gains were greatest in Major Cities (from 44% in 1996 to 57% in 2006) and smallest in Very Remote areas (from 30% in 1996 to 36% in 2006). In 2006, the proportion of people with a non-school qualification declined with increasing levels of remoteness.
Source: ABS 1996 and 2006 Censuses of Population and Housing.

According to the census, three-quarters (75%) of 15-19 year olds were attending an educational institution in 2006 (compared with 71% in 1996), with most (72%) of the students in this age group attending a secondary school. Some of this increase reflects changes in the education system in recent years whereby a number of state governments have increased the minimum school leaving age.
Source: ABS 1996 and 2006 Censuses of Population and Housing.

Among young people aged 20-24 years, around one-third (34%) were attending an educational institution in 2006, up from 27% in 1996. Increases in participation in education for this age group were observed in Major Cities (from 32% in 1996 to 39% in 2006), Inner Regional areas (from 21% to 26%) and Outer Regional areas (from 12% to 17%).
Source: ABS 1996 and 2006 Censuses of Population and Housing.

The 2006 Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALLS) measured literacy competence in four domains: prose literacy, document literacy, numeracy and problem solving. The results were ranked on a scale from level 1 (lowest) to level 5 (highest). Level 3 was considered the minimum level required to meet the increasingly complex demands of a knowledge society.
Almost half of all Australians aged 15-74 years had literacy skills below level 3 (46% had prose literacy skills below level 3 and 47% had document literacy skills below this level) and more than half (53%) had numeracy skills below level 3.
While three-quarters of people surveyed scored below level 3 in at least one domain, just over one-third (36%) were below level 3 in all four domains. One-quarter of people scored level 3 or above in all four domains.
There have been some small improvements in literacy in the ten years to 2006. According to the survey, there has been a small but significant decline in the proportion of people with prose and document literacy skills at level 1 (three percentage points and two percentage points respectively) between 1996 and 2006. The fall in those at prose literacy level 1 was partially offset by a two percentage point increase for level 2 and level 3 over the 10 years. There was no significant change in the proportion of the population scoring level 2, 3 or 4/5 for document literacy.
Prose and document literacy were the only domains of literacy directly comparable to the 1996 survey.
Most of the improvements in literacy over the period 1996 to 2006 (particularly the decline in the proportion of people with prose literacy level 1) occurred in the age group 50-74 years.
Source: 2006 Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALLS)