Chapter 2. Progress towards the EFA goals - Unesco

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2 0 0 1 CHAPTER 2 Box 2.19: Rich countries — poor literacy Education for All Global Monitoring Report The world is far off track for the 2015 target of achieving a 50% improvement in levels of adult literacy This section focuses on illiteracy in poor countries, but rich countries also have significant pockets of deprivation. Many adults lack the functional literacy skills they need to apply for jobs, read newspapers or understand documents — on housing, health and the education of children, for example — that affect their lives: In France, an estimated 9% of people aged 18 to 65 lack the basic reading, writing, arithmetic and other fundamental skills required for simple everyday situations. In the Netherlands, 1.5 million adults (including 1 million native Dutch speakers) are classified as functionally illiterate, implying that they are not equipped to process basic information. In the United States, 14% of the population lacks the literacy skills to perform simple, everyday tasks like understanding newspaper articles and instruction manuals. Around 12% lack the literacy In Afghanistan, 87% of adult women and 57% of men were illiterate in 2000. In Chad, Ethiopia and Mali, women are around 1.5 times as likely as men to be illiterate. In Algeria and Yemen, the illiteracy rates for females are more than twice those for men. Contrary to common understanding, the relationship between average income and literacy is highly variable. For example, Egypt’s average income is comparable to that of Ecuador, but its literacy rate is 66% while Ecuador’s is 84%. Similarly, Algeria has a far higher level of average income than Bolivia but a lower adult literacy rate. In both cases, gender disparities explain much of the discrepancy (see annex, Statistical Table 2). The contrasting profiles for national literacy point to distinctive policy challenges. As well as making sure that young people emerge from education systems with basic literacy skills, many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, South and West Asia and parts of the Arab world need to extend literacy opportunities to a large share of the adult population. In Brazil and Indonesia, where illiteracy affects 10% or less of the adult population, policy-makers still have to address the task of reaching highly marginalized groups and people, many of them in remote areas. skills needed to fill out a job application or understand labels on food and drugs. More than one in five — 22% of the population — has ‘below basic’ quantitative skills, finding it impossible to balance a chequebook or deduce from an advertisement the amount of interest on a loan. In England (United Kingdom), 1.7 million people (5% of those aged 16 to 65) perform below the level expected of 7-year-olds on the national curriculum test, and 5.1 million perform below the level expected of 11-year-olds. Literacy problems in rich countries are often concentrated in areas of acute social disadvantage, among migrant groups and the poor. Illiteracy is a factor in low pay, insecure employment and social exclusion. Sources: Burd-Sharps et al. (2008); National Agency to Fight Illiteracy (2007); National Literacy Trust (2009); Reading and Writing Foundation (2009). Measuring literacy is not an exact science. National estimates are typically derived from census and household surveys in which people are asked to report on their own literacy status (Box 2.20). Because the idea of literacy is specific to different cultures and contexts, the word itself can have different meanings to different people (Fransman, 2005; UIS, 2008a). National surveys often fail to generate representative data for populations that are hard to reach or people living in informal settlements (Aderinoye and Rogers, 2005). Given that literacy levels are likely to be lower among these groups this can also lead to underestimation of the numbers of illiterates. The progress report The world is far off track for the 2015 target of achieving a 50% improvement in levels of adult literacy. In the absence of a concerted international drive to prioritize literacy, there is little prospect of the target being brought within reach. Yet the experience of some countries, and of some programmes within countries, demonstrates that a great deal can be achieved in relatively little time. Adult literacy rates in the developing world have been rising with every school generation. As more children enter school and leave with basic literacy skills, literacy rates inevitably rise. Literacy programmes have also played a positive role in some countries. From 1985–1994 to 2000–2007, 96
PROGRESS TOWARDS THE EFA GOALS Youth and adult literacy Figure 2.30: In developing countries, illiteracy can affect from one to three out of four adults Adult (15 and over) illiteracy rates in countries with rates of 25% or more in selected regions, 2000–2007 1 Arab States (19) Iraq Egypt Sudan* ,2 Yemen Mauritania Morocco India Nepal Pakistan* Bangladesh Bhutan* Afghanistan* Kenya* Uganda U. R. Tanzania Nigeria Malawi Madagascar* Zambia Cameroon* Angola* D. R. Congo* Ghana Rwanda* Eritrea Burundi* Liberia Togo * Côte d’Ivoire* C. A. R. * Mozambique Senegal* Benin Sierra Leone Ethiopia Chad Guinea* Burkina Faso* Niger* Mali* South and West Asia (9) Sub-Saharan Africa (41) 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 Adult illiteracy rates (%) Regional average 29% Regional average 36% Regional average 38% Notes: For countries indicated with *, national observed literacy data are used. For all others, UIS literacy estimates are used. The estimates were generated using the UIS Global Age-specific Literacy Projections model. Figures in parentheses after region names indicate the number of countries with publishable data in the region. 1. Data are for the most recent year available during the period specified. See the web version of the introduction to the statistical tables for a broader explanation of national literacy definitions, assessment methods, and sources and years of data. 2. Data do not include all geographic regions. Source: Annex, Statistical Table 2. the number of adult illiterates in the world fell by 13%. Given that population growth pushed the adult population up by around 30% in the same period, the net effect is clearly positive. Adult literacy levels increased more rapidly than in the 1990s (Qiao, 2007), growing by 10% to reach 84% in 2000-2007. Box 2.20: A new generation of literacy statistics New approaches to literacy measurement are attempting to address long-standing data problems. One prominent example is the Literacy Assessment and Monitoring Programme (LAMP). Conventional approaches to literacy measurement are often fundamentally flawed. Asking people to report whether they are literate is of limited use in assessing real capabilities. Similarly, testing literacy by reference to words, objects and experiences that have no relevance in the lives of the people being surveyed can understate achievement levels. The LAMP approach tests literacy in three domains: continuous texts (prose), non-continuous texts (documents) and numeracy. Results reflect a continuum of achievement, and the tests are designed to be meaningful to respondents. Data generated through the tests are intended for national and cross-national comparisons. Developed by the UIS and administered through ministries of education, LAMP surveys are in the pilot stage in several countries. Sources: UIS (2009c, 2009d). The broadly positive global canvas hides some less encouraging developments (Figure 2.31). Almost all the decline in the number of illiterate adults in the developing world took place in just one region, East Asia and the Pacific. In South and West Asia, population growth cancelled out the decline in numbers of illiterate adults. In sub-Saharan Africa, the number of illiterates increased by 19.5 million. The Arab States also experienced an increase. Some countries witnessed large absolute increases in the number of illiterate adults: over 1 million in Burkina Faso, the Philippines, Senegal, the United Republic of Tanzania and Viet Nam, and 4 million in Bangladesh and Ethiopia (see annex, Statistical Table 2). The idea that countries are powerless to combat adult illiteracy is refuted by the experience of countries that have achieved rapid progress. The following are examples of positive change between 1985–1994 and 2000–2007: Much of the illiteracy reduction in East Asia can be traced to China. The number of adult illiterates there fell by 114 million or 62% between the two periods, with an average increase in the number of adult literates of 4 million between 1990 and 2000 (NCEDR, 2008). Adult literacy levels grew by 10% to reach 84% in 2000-2007 97
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