What is the literacy situation around the world? The answer is complex. Many of the world's countries report to agencies such as UNESCO or the World Bank statistical data about their populations. With these data, such agencies create and publish statistics about literacy levels in all countries. These statistics help communities, governments, and international agencies make important decisions. Yet, these statistics also have many limitations. To help you become aware of issues involved in making sense of reported literacy statistics, this section covers three main topics:

Definitions of Literacy

Assessment Issues

The Limitations of Literacy Statistics

We suggest you do these topics in the order shown, before you go on to view actual statistics in Basic Statistics.