International Literacy Explorer - Statistics

This section allows you to view definitions for key terms used in the statistics section.

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Adult Illiterates, Estimated Number of *: The estimated number of adult illiterates (15 years and over) in thousands.
Assessment: In an educational context, systematic, regular measures of learning achievement or program accomplishment.
Average: A single value that summarizes or represents the general significance of a set of unequal values; the number obtained by dividing the sum of two or more quanitities by the number of quantities.

Cohort Reaching Grade 5, Percentage of *

The percentage of children starting primary school who eventually attain Grade 5 (Grade 4, if the duration of primary school is four years).
Computers, Personal **: The estimated number of self-contained computers designed to be used by a single individual, per 1,000 people.

Data: Factual information used as a basis for reasoning, discussion, or calculation; a collection of numerical facts.

Education, Public Expenditure on **: The percentage of GNP accounted for by public spending on public education plus subsidies to private education at the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels.

Fertility Rate, Total **: The number of children that would be born to a woman if she were to live to the end of her childbearing years and bear children in accordance with current age-specific fertility rates.

GNP Per Capita **: The gross national product (GNP) divided by midyear population and converted to U.S. dollars.
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) **: The sum of the gross value added by all resident and nonresident producers in the economy plus any taxes and minus any subsidies not included in the value of the products. It is calculated at purchasers' prices, without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or for depletion and degradation of natural resources.
Gross National Product (GNP) **: The sum of value added by all resident producers plus any taxes (less subsidies) that are not included in the valuation of output plus net receipts of primary income (employee compensation and property income) from nonresident sources.

Illiteracy: See Literacy and Illiteracy.
Illiteracy Rate, Adult **: The percentage of adults aged 15 and above who cannot, with understanding, read and write a short, simple sentence about their everyday life.

Land Area, Total **: A country's total area, excluding areas under inland bodies of water.
Life Expectancy at Birth **: The number of years a newborn infant would live if prevailing patterns of mortality at the time of its birth were to stay the same throughout its life.
Literacy: See Definitions of Literacy.

Mean: A simple average (the sum of the items in a set of data divided by the number of items) or the value midway between two extremes (a high of 100 and a low of 50 have a mean of 75).
Mortality Rate, Infant **: The number of deaths of infants under one year of age during the indicated year per 1,000 live births in the same year.
Mortality Rate, Under-5 **: The probability (expressed as a rate per 1,000) of a child born in the indicated year dying before reaching the age of 5, if subject to current age-specific mortality rates.
Mortality Ratio, Maternal **: The number of women who die during pregnancy and childbirth, per 100,000 live births.

Newspapers, Daily **: The number of newspapers published at least four times a week, per 1,000 people.

Population Growth Rate, Average Annual **: The exponential change in population for the period indicated.
Population, Total **: Midyear estimate of the number of residents within a country. Includes all residents regardless of legal status or citizenship except for refugees not permanently settled in the country of asylum.

Radios **: The estimated number of radio receivers in use for broadcast to the general public, per 1,000 people.
Reliability: The extent to which an experiment, test, or measuring procedure yields the same results on repeated trials.

Sampling: The act, process, or technique of selecting a representative part of a population for the purpose of determining the characteristics of the whole population.
Schooling, Average Years of **: The average number of years of formal schooling received.
Schooling, Expected Years of *: The number of years a child is expected to remain at school, or university, including years spent on repetition. It is the sum of the age-specific enrolment ratios for primary, secondary, and tertiary education.
Self-report: Information about an individual that has been provided by that individual.
Statistics: A branch of mathematics dealing the collection, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of masses of numerical data; or, a collection of quantitative data.

Television Sets **: The estimated number of television sets in use, per 1,000 people.

Validity: The extent to which a test, experiment, or measuring procedure actually assesses what it was designed to assess.
Variable: Any characteristic of a person or thing that can be expressed as a number.

* Definitions from the UNESCO World Education Report 1998.

** Definitions from The World Bank's World Development Indicators 1998.