The dataset you are about to download is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO license. Countries with high literacy rates also tend to have higher results in the basic literacy tests included in the DHS surveys (this is a . Globally, the youth literacy rate increased from 87 per cent in 2000 to 92 per cent in, . The literacy rate in Vietnam is 94.51%, making it one of the countries with the lowest literacy rate in the world. Both the development of new technologies (innovation) and their use in production relied on a much better-educated population. You have permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited. The LAMP structure in these pilots (implemented in Jordan, Mongolia, Palestine, and Paraguay) is as follows: Background questionnaire: collects information on the respondents educational attainment, self-reported literacy, literacy use in and outside of work, and occupation, amongst other information. A world map of these scores can be found here. One country on this list that's worth touching on is Cuba. Here we can see that most countries use sampling instruments (coded as surveys in the map), although in the past census data was more common. Adult literacy rate is the percentage of people ages 15 and above who can both read and write with understanding a short simple statement about their everyday life. The visualization shows specifically how remarkably large these differences are in Northern Africa and the Middle East. The Italian literacy rates are high because education is highly valued in the country, and the country offers free education to all citizens. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. Literacy - Country Comparison - TOP 50 - IndexMundi The literacy rate for all males and females that are at least 15 years old is 86.3%. List of countries by literacy rate - Wikiwand These countries have put in place comprehensive education systems that ensure that every citizen is literate. These efforts have helped to improve the literacy rate in the country, but there is still room for improvement. For example, in Greece people are considered literate if they have finished six years of primary education; while in Paraguay you qualify as literate if you have completed two years of primary school.7. Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 IGO license. Clearly this number has been "engineered". Over the course of the 19th century global literacy more than doubled. The education attainment rate is currently unknown. Global Well-being since 1820, published in 2014. Hence, despite variation on the types of questions and census instruments used, these historical census data remain the best source of data on literacy for the period prior 1990. This disparity highlights the unequal distribution of educational opportunities around the world and suggests that more effort is needed to ensure that every individual has access to education. The countries with the highest literacy rates are Andorra, Finland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, North Korea, Norway, Uzbekistan, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. Adult literacy rate of China increased from 65.5 % in 1982 to 96.8 % in 2018 growing at an average . Countries with high literacy rates often . The LAMP tests three skill domains: reading continuous texts (prose), reading non-continuous texts (documents), and numeracy skills. The education system focuses on providing quality education and promoting equal opportunities for all students. The literacy rate of a country is the percentage of people aged 15 or above who can read and write. Adult (15+) literacy rate (%). Literacy - Country Comparison - IndexMundi As the center of the Industrial Revolution and one of the first countries that established democratic institutions, England was in important aspects the center of the development of modernity. ICT skills are calculated by the simple ratio of the number of individuals in a demographic group who used a certain ICT skill, divided by the total number of people in that demographic group. The data shows that improvements in literacy preceded the Industrial Revolution and in many ways the rise of living standards became only possible thanks to an increasingly better educated public. Data further show significant variations across countries: in Malawi and Bangladesh, less than 3 per cent of young women aged 15 to 24 performed any ICT-related activity. Education is highly valued in Australia, and the country offers free education to all citizens. Adult literacy rate, population 15+ eyars, both sexes - UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), Literacy rate, adult total (%of people ages 15 and above) - World Bank, Adult literacy rates, 2015 - Our World in Data, Adult literacy rates, 2019 - Our World in Data. According to the OECD report How Was Life? To help readers learn more about the world leaders in this field, we have highlighted the countries with the highest literacy rates from across the globe. Slovakia has 20 publicly operated universities and 10 private universities. Overall, most countries have high literacy rates, with the majority of them above 95%. The Swedish government also prioritizes early childhood education and has implemented policies to improve the educational outcomes for immigrant and refugee students. This interactive map shows how the literacy rates varies between countries around the world. What other countries other than Andorra have a 100% literacy rate? What country has the highest literacy rate ? We use cookies. Particularly fast improvements in literacy took place across Northwest Europe in the period 1600-1800. This number has increased drastically due to improvements in education within the country, such as more focus on early childhood education and universal access to higher education. In contrast, the least developed nations manage an average literacy rate of only 65%. 4.6.2. Despite large improvements in the expansion of basic education, and the continuous reduction of education inequalities, there are substantial challenges ahead. The education attainment rate is currently unknown. Country. The evidence suggests that the narrow concept of literacy measured in early census data provides an imperfect, yet informative account of literacy skills. The literacy rate in China is 96.36%, ranking the country eighty-seventh in the world. Andorra has the highest literacy rate in the world, with a literacy rate of 100%. Literacy | UNESCO UIS The education attainment rate is 38.60%. Andorra is one such country with virtually 100% of its populace being literate. UNdata | record view | Adult literacy rate - United Nations The Journal of Economic History, 69(2), pp.409-445. Most Recent Value. It was only until the Middle Ages that book production started growing and literacy among the general population slowly started becoming important in the Western World.2 In fact, while the ambition of universal literacy in Europe was a fundamental reform born from the Enlightenment, it took centuries for it to happen. Older older publications including data on literacy rates are. With a growth rate of 0.46%, the country has developed over the years to boost the literacy rate. You can read more about it here: http://microdata.worldbank.org/index.php/catalog/step/about. This is due mainly to two confounding factors: Many countries do not report their literacy every year, and many countries have mismatched definitions as to what qualifies as literacy. New Zealand's government has also implemented policies to improve educational outcomes for underrepresented groups, such as Maori and Pacific Islander students. The education system focuses on providing quality education and promoting equal opportunities for all students. However, the government has implemented several initiatives to increase access to education, including free schooling for children from disadvantaged families. Foundational numeracy skills are divided into four tasks: 1) number reading, 2) number discrimination, 3) addition, and 4) pattern recognition. Generally, 'literacy' also encompasses 'numeracy', the ability to make simple arithmetic calculations. In addition, the gender gap in South Asia and West and Central Africa is pronounced these regions each has around 4 million more young women than young men who are illiterate. Information communication technology skills, Are Children Really Learning? Diarchy? Findings in these countries show even greater differences in ICT skills across wealth quintiles. A farewell to alms: a brief economic history of the world. Adult: Percentage of the population aged 25 years and over who can both read and write, with understanding a short simple statement on his/her everyday life. This motivates the next visualization, where we discuss cross-country heterogeneity in more detail. Central African Republic 36.75% 6. Globally, the youth literacy rate increased from 87 per cent in 2000 to 92 per cent in 2020. Benin 38.45% 10. This is how much the global literacy rate grew over 200 years For more details see Buringh, E. and Van Zanden, J.L., 2009. This means that a large portion of the population lacks the basic skills to engage in meaningful economic activity. However, despite the overall high literacy rate, there are still pockets of illiteracy in the country, particularly among certain populations such as those living in poverty or with limited access to education. Malaysia has achieved this ranking through considerable investment in education, with primary and secondary school attendance being compulsory. In addition, the digital nature of modern society makes information and communications technology (ICT) skills essential to full social and economic participation, yet data show that many children and youth do not possess these vital skills. List of countries by literacy rate - Wikipedia The UK government has also implemented policies to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged students, such as those from low-income families or those with special educational needs. Literacy - Our World in Data Despite significant progress in recent years, the country still struggles with providing quality education, especially in rural areas. All maps, graphics, flags, photos and original descriptions 2023 worldatlas.com, Low Literacy Rates In South Asia: Causes And Consequences, Countries With The Most People Living Abroad - Emigration Rate by Country, Countries With the Highest Rate of Gun Ownership, 5 Philosophical Answers to the Meaning of Life, 12 Philosophical Concepts You Should Know, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. In the preceding visualization we showed that England virtually closed literacy gender gaps by 1900. What country has a 100 literacy rate? Global Well-being since 1820 Literacy rate in 1900: 21% Literacy rate in 1960: 42% According to the World Bank: Literacy rate in 2015: 86%. Literacy - Country Comparison - TOP 100 - IndexMundi The global adult literacy rate was 86% in 2016, while the youth literacy rate was 91%. The data produced by third parties and made available by Our World in Data is subject to the license terms from the original third-party authors. This collective effort has enabled Uruguay to reach high levels of literacy. The rate varies throughout the world, with developed nations having a rate of 99.2% (2013), South and West Asia having 70.2% (2015), and sub . Luxembourg 100% 5. The disparity is largest in Nepal, where the share of the children from the poorest families with foundational numeracy skills lags 37 percentage points behind children from the richest families. China has one of the highest literacy rates in the world nearly every single Chinese citizen can read and write demonstrating the value of education placed upon its citizens. In many cases surveys ask only one individual to report literacy on behalf of the entire household. Literacy rates, adult female, one-sentence test (DHS) vs self-reports (UNESCO) Literacy rates, adult male, one-sentence test (DHS) vs self-reports (UNESCO) Youth literacy rate, female. The low literacy rate in Niger has significant social and economic consequences, as it limits individuals ability to access better-paying jobs, participate fully in society, and make informed decisions about their health and well-being. Global Literacy Rates and Data - UNICEF DATA Although the gender gap between males and females narrowed, young women still have a literacy rate 2 percentage points lower than young men. Overall literacy in first-world nations continues to rise, with countries like Luxembourg, Andorra, and . These self-reports of literacy skills have several limitations: Similarly, inferring literacy from data on educational attainment is also problematic, since schooling does not produce literacy in the same way everywhere: Proficiency tests show that in many low-income countries, a large fraction of second-grade primary-school students cannot read a single word of a short text; and for very few people in these countries going to school for four or five years guarantees basic literacy. And up to 1970, the source is UNESCO statistical yearbooks. Uzbekistan 100% 8. From the original source we have excluded some years to have equal time differences on the x-axis (and interpolated the values for 1950), but the data is shown at the linked source. As you can see, younger generations are more likely to be literate than older generations around the world. All data on primary and secondary education used by UNICEF are based on official International Standard Classifications of Education (ISCED) and may deviate somewhat from those used by country-specific school systems. Estonia 99.82% 10. Data published by the geographic data and statistics website World Atlas confirmed that the U.S. was ranked 125th with a literacy rate of 86%, just after Oman and just before the Syian Arab. This has resulted in a steady increase in both male and female literacy rates. Numeracy is the ability to understand and work with numbers. Education in New Zealand is compulsory from ages 6 to 16, and the country has a well-funded public education system that is highly regarded globally. MSN - 5/16/2023 8:04:00 AM. The MICS6 Foundational Learning Skills module measures the learning outcomes at Grade 2 and 3 levels in numeracy and reading (SDG4.1.1.a). Andorra. The country faces various challenges in providing quality education to its citizens, including poverty, inequality, and a lack of access to educational resources. At the national level, the Data Use and Literacy Program works with: Officials in national statistical offices, line ministries, and national and subnational . The global literacy rate for all males is 90.0%, and the rate for all females is 82.7%. The Andorran government has managed to provide free schooling up to the secondary level of education. The global literacy rate for all people aged 15 and above is 86.3%.