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Metadata Glossary

CodeSE.ADT.LITR.MA.ZS
Indicator NameLiteracy rate, adult male (% of males ages 15 and above)
Long definitionAdult literacy rate is the percentage of people ages 15 and above who can both read and write with understanding a short simple statement about their everyday life.
SourceUNESCO Institute for Statistics
TopicEducation: Outcomes
PeriodicityAnnual
Aggregation methodWeighted average
Limitations and exceptionsIn practice, literacy is difficult to measure. Estimating literacy rates requires census or survey measurements under controlled conditions. Many countries report the number of literate people from self-reported data. Some use educational attainment data as a proxy but apply different lengths of school attendance or levels of completion. Ant there is a trend among recent national and international surveys toward using a direct reading test of literacy skills. Because definitions and methods of data collection differ across countries, data should be used cautiously.
General commentsEach economy is classified based on the classification of World Bank Group's fiscal year 2018 (July 1, 2017-June 30, 2018).
License TypeCC BY-4.0
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