people and planet

15
TABLE 15.1:
Youth and adult literacy
Youth literacy
rate%
Gender parity index
Illiterate youth
(000)
Adult literacy
rate %
Gender parity
index
Illiterate adults
(000)
2005–2014 2005–2014 2005–2014 2005–2014 2005–2014 2005–2014
World 91 0.96 114 127 85 0.91 757 920
Low income 68 0.85 35 078 57 0.74 134 811
Lower middle income 86 0.93 72 405 74 0.83 493 776
Upper middle income 99 1.00 5 854 94 0.95 114 350
High income
Caucasus and Central Asia 100 1.00 15 100 1.00 120
Eastern and South-eastern Asia 99 1.00 3 217 95 0.96 84 135
Europe and Northern America
Latin America and the Caribbean 98 1.00 2 266 93 0.99 33 373
Northern Africa and Western Asia 93 0.96 6 073 82 0.86 52 878
Pacific
Southern Asia 84 0.91 52 848 68 0.76 389 408
Sub-Saharan Africa 71 0.86 48 765 60 0.76 188 315
Source: UIS database.
youth literacy rate was as low as 71% in sub-Saharan
Africa (Table 15.1).
In recent years, the estimation of literacy rates has been
supported by the availability of direct assessments in
two large international comparative household survey
programmes, the DHS and the Multiple Indicator Cluster
Surveys (MICS). Both ask individuals aged 15 to 49 to
read a simple sentence from a card. In recent MICS
rounds, the literacy questions are asked only of women.
The UIS began using direct assessments in countries
lacking other sources of information, then gradually
extended them more systematically to improve literacy
estimates, especially in low income countries.
Increased use of direct assessments has reduced
discrepancies between official literacy rates and those
obtained from direct assessments in household surveys.
For example, among 19 low income countries, the median
female youth literacy rate reported in the 2010 GMR
was nine percentage points above the corresponding
estimate based on DHS and MICS; the gap had been
reduced to four percentage points for the literacy rates
reported in the 2015 GMR.
However, there are still discrepancies in both directions.
For example, the estimated female youth literacy rate
based on the 2010 MICS in Chad is 27 percentage points
below the official rate, while the 2013 DHS in Zambia
estimates the female youth literacy rate to be 21 percentage
points higher than the official rate (Figure 15.3).
The use of direct assessments to more accurately
estimate literacy rates needs to be done carefully to
ensure that the literacy rate trend is consistent. For
example, according to the DHS, the primary education
attainment rate of young women increased from
12% in 2001 to 29% in 2012 in Mali and from 14% in
1999 to 33% in 2012 in Guinea. But while the official
female youth literacy rate increased from 24% in 2003 to
39% in 2011 in Mali, it appears to have fallen from 34% in
2003 to 22% in 2010 in Guinea.
Overall, official literacy rates have improved considerably.
Yet, this should not distract from a key shortcoming: even
direct assessments measure only the most rudimentary
of literacy skills. Effectively determining proficiency levels
requires more nuanced and intensive efforts to assess
the abilities of youth and adults ‘to identify, understand,
interpret, create, communicate and compute’.
LITERACY AND NUMERACY
PROFICIENCY LEVELS
In the past 20 years, international interest in in-depth
assessments of literacy and numeracy skills has
increased (UNESCO, 2015d). For many high income
countries, information on adult literacy and numeracy
proficiency is available from the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
Programme for the International Assessment of
Adult Competencies (PIAAC) and its predecessors,
the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) and the
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CHAPTER 15 | TARGET 4.6 – LITERACY AND NUMERACY