Over 1 of 10 adults are illiterate. 2/3 of them are women.
In celebration of International Literacy Day 2013, a new UNESCO infographic illustrates the problem:
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Turn the headline around. You’re saying almost 90% of adults are literate. That’s actually very good but I don’t think it’s close. The US has tens of millions of functional illiterates…
Bruce, the number I quoted comes from UNESCO. I’ve seen numbers as high as close to 50% of US adults being functional illiterates… comes down to how you define/measure illiteracy.
Is it people who don’t know the alphabet?
Those who struggle reading?
Those who don’t have enough education to understand correctly and communicate effectively?
I don’t think there’s a universally accepted definition so the numbers contain a lot of guess work.
What is obvious is that the problem is significant and at the root of many other problems we struggle with today.