literacy rate and education

Literacy empowers and liberates people. Beyond its importance as part of the right to education, literacy improves lives by expanding capabilities which in turn reduces poverty, increases participation in the labour market and has positive effects on health and sustainable development.

Of the world population older than 15 years, the majority are literate. This interactive map shows how literacy rates vary around the world. In many countries, more than 95% have basic literacy skills. Literacy skills of the majority of the population are a modern achievement as we show below.

An overview of how literacy is defined, and how estimates compare to other measures of educational achievement.

In the chart, we see the difference in the global enrollment rates for primary, secondary, and tertiary (post-secondary) education. The share of children who complete primary school is also shown. We see these lines converging over time, and recently they met: rates between boys and girls are the same.

Key facts. 754 million. adults aged 15 and above. still lack basic literacy skills, two-thirds of them are women. 87% of the world's population. above 15 years knows how to read and write. 1.5. billion students and youth. across the planet are or have been affected by school and university closures. 250. million children.

A modern approach to improving literacy rates in the United States includes applying an explicit equity lens and increasing investment to elevate student outcomes. Education, Education,...

What are the rates of literacy in the United States? Four in five U.S. adults (79 percent) have English literacy skills sufficient to complete tasks that require comparing and contrasting information, paraphrasing, or making low-level inferences—literacy skills at level 2 or above in PIAAC (OECD 2013).

In 37 education systems, average reading literacy scores for 15-year-olds were lower in 2022 than in 2018. In these education systems, score decreases from 2018 to 2022 ranged from 7 points in Singapore to 77 points in Jordan.

Despite the steady rise in literacy rates over the past 50 years, there are still 754 million illiterate adults around the world, most of whom are women.

literacy rate increased from 56% in 1950 to 70% in 1980, 75% in 1990 and 82% in 2000-2004. Worldwide, the adult literacy rate increased at a faster pace in the 1970s than in