Royal Academy of Sciences

As the annual year-end summary drew near, Arthur began to develop a headache as well.

The Eight-Year Construction Plan called for nearly twice as many universities to be built, which also meant twice as many professors and academic talents as Australasian University currently had.

Where could they find such a huge number of university professors and experts? Aside from recruiting heavily from the current American territories and Europe, there was truly no better solution.

The good news was that the former United States had achieved quite a lot in education. The American territories had a total population of over one hundred million, and the number of universities had long since surpassed five hundred—almost ten times that of Australasia.

That figure was astonishing. After all, the population of the United States had been roughly three times that of Australasia.

This also meant that in terms of universities, Australasia lagged more than three times behind the former United States. Every year, it produced fewer than one-tenth as many university students as American universities did.

This was not the later era, when university students were everywhere. University degrees were still quite valuable. The degree system in Australasia was similar to that of the United Kingdom, with certain adjustments made according to the nation's needs.

At present, Australasia's degree system could be divided into three levels, corresponding to bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees.

After successfully graduating from a university recognized by the government of the Kingdom of Australasia, one could receive an ordinary bachelor's degree.

Ordinary bachelor's degrees were also divided into two types, corresponding to the arts and sciences.

Above the ordinary bachelor's degree was the slightly higher-level honors bachelor's degree.

Put simply, students pursuing an honors bachelor's degree only needed to study one or two disciplines, but the requirements for those disciplines