Adult and youth literacy in 2009

8 September was International Literacy Day. On this occasion, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) released a fact sheet with estimates of adult and youth literacy in 2009, the most recent year with data.

Theglobal adult literacy rate, for the population 15 years and older, was83.7% in 2009, compared to 83.4% in 2008. The adult illiteratepopulation fell from 796.2 million in 2008 to 793.1 million in 2009.64.1% of the adult illiterate population were women. Adult literacyrates are lowest in sub-Saharan African and in South and WestAsia (see Figure 1). In 11 countries, less than half of the adultpopulation were able to read and write: Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad,Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea, Haiti, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Sierra Leone.

Figure 1: Adult literacy rate, 2009

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2011

Youth literacy rates - for the population 15 to 24 years - aregenerally higher than adult literacy rates, due to increased school attendance rates amongyounger generations. The global youth literacy rate was 89.3% in 2009,compared to 89.0% in 2008. The youth illiterate population fell from130.6 million in 2008 to 127.3 million in 2009. Youth literacy rates are lowest in sub-Saharan Africa(see Figure 2) and the five countries worldwide with youth literacy rates below 50%are from this region: Burkina Faso, Chad, Ethiopia, Mali and Niger.

Figure 2: Youth literacy rate, 2009

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2011

Reference

• UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). 2011. Adult and youth literacy. UIS fact sheet no. 16, September. Montreal: UIS. (Download in PDF format, 350 KB)

Related articles

• Trends in adult literacy, 1990-2008
• Literacy data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics
• Adult literacy in 2007
• Disparity between male and female literacy rates
• Disparity between adult and youth literacy
• Adult literacy in Sub-Saharan Africa

External links

• International Literacy Day (UNESCO)
• Literacy data (UNESCO Institute for Statistics)

Friedrich Huebler, 30 September 2011, Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2011/09/literacy.html

School attendance by grade and age in Liberia

The article "Overage pupils in primary and secondary education" of June 2011 summarized data on school attendance from 36 countries and found that overage school attendance is common in sub-Saharan Africa. The countries with the highest share of overage pupils in the sample were Haiti, Liberia, Uganda, Rwanda, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, and Malawi. In Liberia, 93% of all pupils in primary and secondary education are at least one year overage for their grade and 84% are at least two years overage. This article takes a closer look at Liberia by analyzing data from the same Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) from 2007 that was analyzed for the earlier article.

The official primary school age in Liberia, as defined by the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED), is 6 to 11 years. The official secondary school age is 12 to 17 years. Given these school ages, a 6-year-old in grade 1 and a 7-year-old in grade 2 are in the right grade for their age. A 7-year-old in grade 1 would be one year overage and an 8-year-old in grade 1 would be two years overage. A 5-year-old in grade 1 would be one year underage.

The graph below shows the age distribution of pupils in primary and secondary education in Liberia. Pupils who are in the right grade for their age or underage are in a small minority. In the first twelve grades, their share never exceeds 9%. By contrast, as many as 98% of all pupils in a single grade are overage. The degree of overage attendance is astounding: 5% of all first graders are 9 or more years overage, meaning that they start primary school at age 15 or later. 19% of all first graders are at least 7 years overage and 44% are at least 5 years overage. In grade 8, 18% of all pupils are 9 or more years overage; while the official age for eighth graders is 13 years, one in five pupils in that grade in Liberia is 22 years or older.

Age distribution of pupils in primary and secondary education in Liberia, 2007

Source: Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) 2007.

What are the reasons for this high prevalence of overage school attendance? In Liberia, as in other countries of sub-Saharan Africa, many pupils enter school late for a variety of reasons that include poverty, a scarcity of educational facilities, and lack of enforcement of the official school ages. High repetition rates further exacerbate the problem of overage school attendance. Among the consequences of this age structure in school are a higher probability of dropout and reduced lifetime earnings caused by incomplete education or late entry into the labor market.

Related articles

• Overage pupils in primary and secondary education
• Official school ages: primary, secondary, and compulsory education
• Primary school entrance age and duration
• Repetition rates in primary and secondary school
• Survival rate to the last grade of primary school
• Transition from primary to secondary education
• Regional disparities in school life expectancy
• Children of primary and secondary school age out of school
• Children out of school: Global trend 1999-2008
• Household wealth and years of education
• National wealth and years of education
• National wealth and school enrollment
• Review of the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED)

External links

• Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS)
• International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED)

Friedrich Huebler, 31 July 2011, Creative Commons License
Permanent URL: http://huebler.blogspot.com/2011/07/liberia.html