What are the top countries with the highest literacy rates in the world in 2017?
Education is one of the main factors in every society, as it affects its every level. If one country has a small number of educated people, it could also impact its economy, political situation and moreover, culture. How exactly does it function? With more educated people, there is a rise in a level of skillfulness and professionalism. Moreover, there is a bigger possibility for creativity and innovations, as well. It will impact country’s economy as more people will be employed, which will further have an influence on choosing better governance and understanding of the rule of law. In addition, mutual collaboration in one society will rise tolerance, which will then influence cultural level as well. It is also one of the crucial things for living in a more peaceful environment.
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” – Nelson Mendela
As we can see, education is essential for living and developing as a person, but it also represents a factor in a country’s development. By raising the level of education, it could positively affect the decrease of poverty, promotion of health and gender equality, among other things mentioned above. According to some of the key findings of Economic and Social Research Council, it is also associated with higher social trust and less hostility towards migrants.
The main organizations on the global level that are dealing with education and its promotion are United Nations, or more precisely UN Development Programs. It is a global development network that advocates prosperity in knowledge in order to connect it to experience and offers resources for better quality of life. The tools they use are assistance, training, and grants to countries in need. They are currently working with governments and communities in 177 countries! That’s why we consulted with UNDP’s statistics when compiling the list of most educated countries with the highest literacy rates in the world in 2017.
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Nevertheless, OECD has also conducted a research of most educated countries by few indicators. In order to create our list of the countries with the highest literacy rates in the world in 2017, we chose one indicator: percentage of the population with tertiary education. Tertiary education is considered to be the highest level of education which includes both theoretical programs that could lead to advanced researches or some professions that require high skills. They have made measurements of the same age population for the year 2015. For the reference’s sake, the average percentage of the population with tertiary education is 42.1%. Moreover, for additional information we consulted The UNDP Human Development Report Office that releases annual report on each country’s development according to few indexes such as income, life expectancy, and education.
If you are really interested in this topic regarding top countries with the highest literacy rates in the world in 2017, don’t miss reading our article on the same topic from the year 2015 – The 14 Most Educated Countries in the World. Recently we also compiled the lists of 10 most educated countries in Africa and most educated countries in Asia. On the other side of the coin, we also put together the list of least educated countries in the world as well.
For your better understanding of the rest of the text here are some explanations of terms we’ll be using: “Expected years of schooling” (EYS), represents number of years a child of school entrance age can expect to spend at a given level of education; “Mean years of schooling” (MYS) – an average number of completed years of education of a population of 25 years and older. The maximum for “Mean years of schooling” is 15, whereas the maximum for “Expected years of schooling” is 18, which is considered to be the achieving the master’s degree. The ranking on our list of the top countries with the highest literacy rates in the world in 2017 will go from the the smallest percentage of the population with tertiary education to the highest one. Let’s start.
