Unpacking the international assessment data of literate population: The challenge and opportunity for global monitoring on adult literacy

Abstract

As an inter-governmental commitment toward education for all in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) context, Education 2030 Framework for Action has advocated to trace progress of adult literacy in within the lifelong learning framework. A purpose of this study is to scrutinize the international assessment data as a global indicator on adult literacy. For this, the author uses a multi data source from three influential international organizations such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the World Bank. The international databases are analyzed by a mixed-method approach from literature review to non-parametric analysis. Using the secondary analysis of the data on global literacy assessment projects, the findings of this study critically demonstrate that the global literacy assessments have been exclusively occupied in developed countries. Also, the non-parametric methods show significant differences in national policy on adult learning and education. Key results of this study suggest that adult literacy skills need to be linked with lifelong learning matrix as well as more contextual measures are necessary for scaling up literacy learning with an improved monitoring tool.