Middle East & North Africa (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
Middle East & North Africa (excluding high income)
Records
63
Source
Middle East & North Africa (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
39.62331009 1972
40.10052872 1973
40.58827972 1974
41.12535858 1975
41.70298004 1976
42.28366852 1977
42.99940109 1978
43.71429825 1979
44.55875015 1980
45.40877151 1981
46.22275925 1982
47.09122849 1983
48.03279877 1984
49.18330002 1985
50.23703003 1986
51.15568924 1987
52.2937088 1988
53.31335831 1989
55.90718842 1990
57.33581924 1991
58.35144043 1992
59.20312881 1993
59.96607971 1994
61.66532898 1995
63.02767944 1996
63.94300079 1997
65.12889862 1998
66.25087738 1999
67.32566833 2000
68.48272705 2001
68.91542053 2002
72.40997314 2003
73.11199188 2004
72.69361115 2005
72.63803101 2006
73.23882294 2007
73.72486877 2008
73.53070831 2009
74.31271362 2010
74.5015564 2011
77.37709045 2012
75.02294159 2013
79.25740051 2014
76.72051239 2015
77.88831329 2016
78.95287323 2017
75.89608765 2018
76.27720642 2019
76.63752747 2020
77.00444794 2021
77.39949799 2022
Middle East & North Africa (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
Middle East & North Africa (excluding high income)
Records
63
Source