East Asia & Pacific (excluding high income) | Literacy rate, adult total (% of people ages 15 and above)
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. Development relevance: Literacy rate is an outcome indicator to evaluate educational attainment. This data can predict the quality of future labor force and can be used in ensuring policies for life skills for men and women. It can be also used as a proxy instrument to see the effectiveness of education system; a high literacy rate suggests the capacity of an education system to provide a large population with opportunities to acquire literacy skills. The accumulated achievement of education is fundamental for further intellectual growth and social and economic development, although it doesn't necessarily ensure the quality of education. Literate women implies that they can seek and use information for the betterment of the health, nutrition and education of their household members. Literate women are also empowered to play a meaningful role. Limitations and exceptions: In practice, literacy is difficult to measure. Estimating literacy rates requires census or survey measurements under controlled conditions. Many countries report the number of literate people from self-reported data. Some use educational attainment data as a proxy but apply different lengths of school attendance or levels of completion. Ant there is a trend among recent national and international surveys toward using a direct reading test of literacy skills. Because definitions and methods of data collection differ across countries, data should be used cautiously. Statistical concept and methodology: Literacy statistics for most countries cover the population ages 15 and older, but some include younger ages or are confined to age ranges that tend to inflate literacy rates. The youth literacy rate for ages 15-24 reflects recent progress in education. It measures the accumulated outcomes of primary education over the previous 10 years or so by indicating the proportion of the population who have passed through the primary education system and acquired basic literacy and numeracy skills. Generally, literacy also encompasses numeracy, the ability to make simple arithmetic calculations. Data on literacy are compiled by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics based on national censuses and household surveys and, for countries without recent literacy data, using the Global Age-Specific Literacy Projection Model (GALP). For detailed information, see www.uis.unesco.org.
Publisher
The World Bank
Origin
East Asia & Pacific (excluding high income)
Records
63
Source
East Asia & Pacific (excluding high income) | Literacy rate, adult total (% of people ages 15 and above)
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976 63.69446945
1977 63.85950851
1978 65.0514679
1979 66.38844299
1980 67.03752899
1981 68.75820923
1982 69.42568207
1983 70.83397675
1984 71.91036224
1985 72.93437195
1986 73.8549118
1987 75.09319305
1988 79.31362152
1989 80.013237
1990 79.82717133
1991 81.20288849
1992 81.76083374
1993 82.26531219
1994 82.84564972
1995 83.42694855
1996 83.94532013
1997 89.52683258
1998 89.90644836
1999 90.20400238
2000 90.51062012
2001 90.92166901
2002 91.259552
2003 91.59902954
2004 91.92951965
2005 92.22669983
2006 92.63806915
2007 93.75110626
2008 94.01068115
2009 94.31404877
2010 94.49054718
2011 94.23133087
2012 94.40514374
2013 94.50150299
2014 94.95567322
2015 95.15975952
2016 95.32141876
2017 95.48628235
2018 95.58525848
2019 95.96350861
2020 96.27159119
2021 96.29737091
2022
East Asia & Pacific (excluding high income) | Literacy rate, adult total (% of people ages 15 and above)
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. Development relevance: Literacy rate is an outcome indicator to evaluate educational attainment. This data can predict the quality of future labor force and can be used in ensuring policies for life skills for men and women. It can be also used as a proxy instrument to see the effectiveness of education system; a high literacy rate suggests the capacity of an education system to provide a large population with opportunities to acquire literacy skills. The accumulated achievement of education is fundamental for further intellectual growth and social and economic development, although it doesn't necessarily ensure the quality of education. Literate women implies that they can seek and use information for the betterment of the health, nutrition and education of their household members. Literate women are also empowered to play a meaningful role. Limitations and exceptions: In practice, literacy is difficult to measure. Estimating literacy rates requires census or survey measurements under controlled conditions. Many countries report the number of literate people from self-reported data. Some use educational attainment data as a proxy but apply different lengths of school attendance or levels of completion. Ant there is a trend among recent national and international surveys toward using a direct reading test of literacy skills. Because definitions and methods of data collection differ across countries, data should be used cautiously. Statistical concept and methodology: Literacy statistics for most countries cover the population ages 15 and older, but some include younger ages or are confined to age ranges that tend to inflate literacy rates. The youth literacy rate for ages 15-24 reflects recent progress in education. It measures the accumulated outcomes of primary education over the previous 10 years or so by indicating the proportion of the population who have passed through the primary education system and acquired basic literacy and numeracy skills. Generally, literacy also encompasses numeracy, the ability to make simple arithmetic calculations. Data on literacy are compiled by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics based on national censuses and household surveys and, for countries without recent literacy data, using the Global Age-Specific Literacy Projection Model (GALP). For detailed information, see www.uis.unesco.org.
Publisher
The World Bank
Origin
East Asia & Pacific (excluding high income)
Records
63
Source