December 8, 2025 - 773 million people in the world cannot read and therefore could not read this article.

September 20, 2018 - From a historical perspective, literacy levels for the world population have risen drastically in the last couple of centuries. While only one in ten people in the world could read and write in 1820, today, the share has reversed, with only ...

6 days ago - The global literacy rate stands at approximately 87.74%, reflecting major gains in education access over time. While most countries have achieved high literacy, progress has slowed as remaining gaps are concentrated in harder-to-reach populations.

August 20, 2026 - Great progress has been made in literacy worldwide but 765 million adults still cannot read and write.

September 26, 2026 - Over 75% of the world's 781 million ... adults globally. Data published by UNESCO using the following definitions: Youth: Percentage of people aged 15 to 24 years who can both read and write, with understanding, a short simple statement on their everyday life. Generally, "literacy" also encompasses "numeracy", the ability to make simple arithmetic calculations. Adult: Percentage of the population aged 25 years ...

Literacy on the planet today is only 84% · 781 million people around the world, or just about every tenth inhabitant of the Earth are still illiterate

September 8, 2012 - In order to reach that target, 6 per cent of the world population, or more than 360 million people, will have to become literate. That's like teaching the entire population of the United States and Canada to read and write, in just three years.

August 14, 2026 - The global adult literacy rate reached 88% in 2024, according to UNESCO, up from 86% in 2015. That means roughly 12% of people aged 15 and older still cannot read and write a basic sentence.

The global number of illiterate adults declined from 754 million in 2023 to 739 million in 2024. This decrease reflects both revised · population estimates from the UN Population Division’s 2024 World Population Prospects (WPP) and updated national literacy

May 14, 2026 - Adult literacy reached 87.01% globally in 2022, yet 773 million adults still cannot read or write. The gap is especially sharp for women and girls, with worldwide female adult literacy at 83.3% in 2018 compared to 90% for males, and nearly all ...

The sad news is that 16 percent ... Takedown request | View complete answer on ouriginal.com · On a global scale, illiteracy affects 774 million adults aged 15 or older....

This slideshows shows Test Question 4 from Gapminder Teach: What percent of adults in the world today are literate – can read and write? You can see the question and the alternatives on the second slide; and the correct answer on the third slide. You can also see how the general public responded this question in our public survey. The US, Norway and Sweden present a similar pattern of ignorance in regards to the literacy rate in the world. The question was asked to a representative sample of their population.

Answer (1 of 2): I'm skeptical of the 90% number. One of the issues is that there's no standardized definition for 'literacy', or what it means to be able to read/write. But I've seen lower numbers. Some (wildly varying) data points: - CIA Factbook: 82% (87% of males > age 15, 77% of females) h...

July 29, 2024 - Today, the corresponding global literacy rate — the share of adults aged 15 and older who can read and write — is 87%. That means more than 5 billion people can read and write today, compared to fewer than 100 million two centuries ago.

September 7, 2023 - Approximately 17 percent of the world's adults are illiterate, and two-thirds of them, about 63%, are women. These figures highlight the specific educational challenges women face globally.

Two centuries ago, only 1 in 10 adults could read. Today, it’s almost 9 in 10 ... Literacy rate of young men vs. womenScatterplot · Literacy rate vs. GDP per capita · Literacy rate vs. average years of schooling · Literacy rates of older ...

March 8, 2023 - While the number of illiterate people in the world continues to decline, there are still approximately 773 million people in the world who cannot read.

Answer: Literate/illiterate is usually presented as a binary thing—either you can or you can’t. In reality, it is much more complicated than that. The number of people who are *totally illiterate,* in which the writing of their native language means as much to them as this means to me: ...

September 7, 2015 - Two-thirds of the illiterate adults are women - and another 250 million children of primary school age do not have a grasp of basic literacy skills.

November 11, 2023 - The international NGO Action Education is sounding the alarm: more than 773 million people, two-thirds of them women, are illiterate, and 250 million children cannot read or write and are not in school.