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10 Ten countries account for 72 per cent of the total number of illiterate adults worldwide.
Millennium Development Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
Target 2A:Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling
Indicator 2.3: Literacy rate of 15-24 year olds, women and men
In 2008, just under 796 million adults lacked basic literacy skills – around 17 per cent of the world’s adult population. Ten countries account for 72 per cent of the total number of illiterate adults.
Performance in these countries has been mixed. Brazil was able to reduce its illiterate adult population by 2.8 million from 2000 to 2007, and China has maintained strong progress towards universal adult literacy. In India, literacy rates are rising, but not fast enough to prevent the number of illiterate adults from increasing by 11 million in the first half of the past decade. Both Nigeria and Pakistan have registered slow progress.
Source: UNESCO Education For All Global Monitoring Report 2011