Learning poverty
Share of children unable to read and understand a simple text by age 10.
- World average (population-weighted)
- 20.2 %
- across 53 countries, 2021
- Latest observation
- 2023
- Source updated
- 13 Jul 2026
- CountryAtlas refreshed
- 11 Sep 2026
- Snapshot 20260911T072322Z
World map
One value per country for the selected year. Hatched = no data.
No data available
Trend
Aggregate across the countries of a group, year by year. Computed by CountryAtlas from country values — no published aggregate is used.
Not enough countries to aggregate this indicator for World.
Highest and lowest
The five leaders and the five trailing countries, 2021.
Top 5
- 2.3 %
- 3.3 %
- 3.4 %
- 3.4 %
- 3.8 %
Source: World Bank — WDI · SE.LPV.PRIM
Bottom 5
Source: World Bank — WDI · SE.LPV.PRIM
Compare countries
Pick up to five countries. Defaults to the three largest economies with data.
No series for the selected countries.
Definition
- Definition
- Share of children unable to read and understand a simple text by age 10.
- Unit
- % of children at end of primary age (%)
- Frequency
- Annual
- Aggregation
- none · Lower is better
- Valid range
- 0 – 100
Sources & provenance
Every value on this page comes from one of these series, chosen per country by priority.
- Priority #1Open at source125 countries · 317 obs. · → 2023 · CC BY 4.0
The share of 10-year-olds who cannot read and understand a short passage of age-appropriate material—in other words, those who are below the “minimum proficiency” threshold for reading. This measure is defined as the union of two deprivations: 1) schooling deprivation and 2) learning deprivation. A child is considered schooling-deprived (SD) if he or she is of primary school age and out-of-school. The dimension of learning deprivation (LD) applies only for children in school, and identifies those pupils who are below the minimum proficiency level (MPL) for reading, as defined by the Global Alliance to Monitor Learning (GAML), measured in standard learning assessments, and reported in the context of the SDG 4.1.1b monitoring. This “union approach” to measurement reflects the choice that, as presented in the SDGs, all age 10 children must be both in school and learning. The final learning poverty measure combines the two dimensions in a single indicator using the following formula: LP = SD + [(1-SD) x LD] Source: World Bank (WB); UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), publisher: UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)
Series-level selection: for each country the whole series comes from the highest-priority source that has any non-forecast value for it. If a lower-priority source is more than three years fresher, the freshest source wins instead. Non-chosen values are kept as alternatives, never discarded.
Countries without data
Typical reasons: the source does not survey small territories or micro-states; the statistical office reports with a lag of one to three years; the series is only compiled for member countries of the source organisation (OECD, EU, Eurostat); or a value exists but failed validation and is quarantined rather than shown.
Downloads & API
Every observation for this indicator, all countries and years, with provenance columns.
API example
One country, full history. Replace CAN by any ISO3 code or slug.
curl -s "https://www.countryatlas.co/api/v1/series?country=CAN&indicator=learning-poverty" | jq '.series[0] | {country: .country.name, unit, last: .stats.last, source: .provenance.source_name}'