The importance of literacy to the personal development of an individual and existence of any nation cannot be overemphasized. Literacy is the foundation for meaningful development of any nation. It is not a single entity but an interconnection of several fields--education, health, agriculture, and more. For example, a literate individual can have…

In the education context of sub-Saharan Africa, reading has received substantial attention in recent years. Reading skills and habits have been identified as a marker of success in formal education, particularly with the current international focus on reading achievement as a measure of learning. Meanwhile, adult literacy continues to be seen as…

This paper illustrates similarities and differences between two international surveys that assess adults' skills: the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) and the Skills Towards Employment and Productivity (STEP) survey. In particular, the paper highlights the issues that can arise for researchers interested to…

This report, which has been developed through a partnership between the African Union Commission (AUC) and UNICEF, aims to: (1) track the progress that African nations have made in education, especially in relation to Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4) and the Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA) goals; (2) identify the challenges…

Comparative research on education in small states has attracted international attention since the mid-1980s when the Commonwealth sponsored a number of seminal meetings and publications, and became a key advocate for the advancement of such work. This article considers the place of different dimensions of scale in comparative research; re-examines…

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) launched the Literacy Initiative for Empowerment (2006-2015)--LIFE--to tackle the literacy challenge. This is a collaborative effort to accelerate literacy efforts in thirty five of the world's most challenged countries and thereby to unlock progress to reach all of the…

This paper explores how literacy learning can support women's empowerment and the development of greater equality, benefitting not only individual women, but families, communities and economies too. It describes and reflects upon some of the most promising approaches to developing literacy and learning for women, who form the majority of the…

This article explores the politics of literacy in late colonial Sudan. Drawing upon hitherto untapped archival sources in English and Arabic, it focuses on two key questions: What were the purposes and uses of literacy in the eyes of colonial authorities? What means were used to spread literacy skills among Sudanese people? Positioning these…

The purpose of this paper is to review recent developments related to the development of indicators of educational progress in the context of the Post 2015 deliberations to generate a new international architecture for educational investment through to 2030. There have been a plethora of suggestions and several parallel consultation processes…

The World Bank is a body that declares its vision to be a world free of poverty. It has long recognised that poverty and illiteracy are closely correlated and that illiteracy is a hindrance to economic and social development. The 180 or so governments that own the Bank have declared literacy to be a human right, so the Bank itself presumably also…

In 2000, approximately 877 million adults worldwide were illiterate and 113 million children did not attend school. More than two-thirds of those individuals lived in East and South Asia, and two-thirds were females. Functional illiteracy remains high in developed and developing nations alike. The reasons include weak training in how to teach…