1. Monitoring of EFA (Literacy)
East and Southeast Asia
EFA Mid-Decade Assessment Capacity Building Workshop
20-24 November 2006
Bangkok. THAILAND

2. International Level National Level
Literacy and its importance in development
International Level
EFA and MDG goals:
UNLD – United Nations Literacy Decade
LIFE – Literacy Initiative for the Excluded
National Level
Always part of the national development agenda
Key Monitoring Indicators –
Adult and youth literacy rates,
Literacy Gender Parity Index,
Ratio of literate females to males of 15 to 24 years old

3. Literacy measurements
Head count for census
Cognitive tests for type and levels of literacy skills
Household survey of literate home environment and behavior

4. Source of literacy statistics
Most literacy data using these days come from censuses.
Most of the household and labour force surveys also collect literacy data.
The most common method of collecting the literacy data in these censuses and surveys is to ask a question, such as: “Are you literate or not?” or “Can you read and understand a letter or a newspaper easily, with difficulty, or not at all?”.
There is no scientific assessment test involved and they result in literacy information in dichotomy way how many are illiterate and how many are not.
These literacy statistics are called “Reported literacy statistics”

5. Sources of literacy statistics
There are specialized surveys that use an assessment tool to test individual’s which provide more comprehensive information on literacy.
Surveys in Cambodia and Lao used tests.
The IALS (International Adult Literacy Survey) and ALL (Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey) used assessment methodology that ensures comparability over time and across populations subgroups and countries.
These surveys provide a literacy profile of the individuals tested and estimates for the population.
These literacy statistics are called “(Assessment) Tested literacy statistics”

6. Sources of literacy statistics
At the international level, there are two main sources of literacy statistics for cross-country analysis –
The literacy estimates made by the UIS
The results from the IALS and ALL surveys
There are also various sources of literacy are made available at the national level
These days most of the statistical agencies develop the websites and present the results of their censuses and surveys including literacy
Some of the national websites like- Census India provides very comprehensive and detailed information.

7. Sources of literacy statistics

8. In addition to these national sources, international surveys such as:
Sources of literacy statistics
In addition to these national sources, international surveys such as:
Multiple Indicators Cluster Surveys (MICS) “ability to read newspaper”
Demographics and Health Surveys (DHS) collect literacy data “Flash card”
Normally the results are appeared in the country reports of these surveys

9. Sources of literacy statistics
Literacy tests as part
of part wider evaluations
Programme evaluations
Individual diagnostics
In-depth data on literacy SKILLS and people’s background
In-depth data on higher literacy levels
Data on students
LAMP
ALL, IALS
PISA, SACMEQ, PIRLS
Comparative cross-national
assessement surveys
Ad hoc
literacy assessment surveys
Declarations
& mini-tests
REGULAR
data collection
Large population COVERAGE
Household surveys
Censuses
Literacy
Measures

10. Issues in current literacy statistics
Like other statistics, literacy statistics also have many data issues and cannot escape from the critics. Among the issues,
definitions and
its comparability (over time and across populations subgroups and countries),
availability,
timeliness and
quality of the data are the most concerns for both data producers and users.

11. Issues in current literacy statistics
Definition of literacy and its comparability
Current UNESCO definition on literacy gave the contextual notion to measure the literacy “a person’s ability to read and write, with understanding, a simple statement about one’s everyday life”.
In different situations and contexts, sometimes for operational purposes, countries are set their own term of literacy
A large number of countries do not collect data on literacy at national level at all and instead use educational attainment as a proxy measure to calculate presumed ‘literates’.

12. Issues in current literacy statistics
Some examples of national definition of illiteracy from national population censuses:
• Algeria (1998): an illiterate is a person who never attended an educational establishment.
• Botswana (1991) : illiterates include all persons with less than five years of education.
• Brazil (1998): is illiterate a person who says he/she doesn’t know how to read and write or has learned how to read and write but has forgotten or only knows how to sign his name.
• Cambodia (1998): Ability to read and write with understanding in any language.
• India (2001): a person is illiterate who has not attained skill in reading and writing simple text and numeracy.

13. Literacy, language, education
Written script and symbols for communication
Phonetic versus ideographic representation
Relationship between spoken, oral language and the written symbols
Phonetic script: Need to know the language first to understand the written scripts and symbols
Ideographic script: meaning in own language, not necessarily the “official” language

14. SIL suggestions Years of formal schooling
Number of years since leaving school
Location; Urban-rural
Speaker (or not) of the language of education upon entry into school
Amount of reading activity in the last year
Number of years of formal schooling of each parent
Gender

15. Other factors IQ Others Personal motivation Quality of school
Level of family and community support

16. Objectives of Education? Oral and Script strategies for
Implications for language / media of instruction for education and training
Objectives of Education?
Oral and Script strategies for
ECCE Early Childhood
UPE Primary and Secondary
Youth and Adults

17. Issues in current literacy statistics
Generally, the literacy rates can be categorized as
1. data from self declaration;
2. data derived from educational attainment as a proxy;
3. data from the result of assessment test.
An example of these different literacy rates can be seen in follows:
Cambodia
62.9

18. Issues in current literacy statistics
Availability and Timeliness of the data
Most population censuses are usually carried out only once in every ten years. Sometimes even less.
Furthermore, it takes one to three years to get the results of the census.
Although some of the surveys (MICS, DHS, Labour forces) which collect the literacy data could perhaps fill the data gaps.
Surveys specially intended to collect more literacy information by using assessment tool provide greater accuracy and reliability but they are more complex, difficult and less frequent.

19. Issues in current literacy statistics
Comprehensiveness
The most widely available kind of literacy statistics is to describe the number and percentage of people who are illiterate.
These statistics give the idea on amount or proportion of population in the country who can really not read or write at all.
Generally the data are available for two sub-population groups - 15 years and over (adult) and 15 to 24 years (youth).
Five years age-groups data can be available but only for the census year or in some cases when the survey take places.
However, it is also important to know their literacy levels, background and practices of literacy, socio-economic status, etc.. to see the impact of education (formal as well as non-formal) and to formulate effective policies and appropriate programmes.

20. Literacy measures – traditional vs functional
Who
Where
Why

21. Emerging trend
Traditionally, literacy is defined as ‘a person’s ability to read and write, with understanding, a simple statement about one’s everyday life’. But, dividing the world into literates and illiterates oversimplifies the nature of literacy.
It is increasingly accepted that there is a continuum of literacy skills and they can be applied in a functional way, i.e., reflecting everyday situations such as reading a bus schedule or using a computer.
In Cambodia Literacy Assessment survey, the literacy is defined by three categories (complete illiterate, semi-illiterate and literate). Again literate are divided into three levels (basic, medium and self-learning).
In IALS and ALL tried to measure the people literacy in three skills (prose, document, and quantitative) divided into five levels.
The UIS has launched the LAMP initiative which aims define and measure a spectrum of literacy skills in developing countries.