globAl illitERACY
Room to REAd’s iNfluENCE
(^2005)
Sri Lanka
978,000
children benefitted
No. of Schools: 1,782
Girls’ Education Participants: 4,565
18,696
Literacy
Programme
Partner Schools
11.5 million
children benefitted
from the Literacy
Programme and Girls’
Education Programme
Worldwide, there are 10 countries in which the
number of illiterate adults exceeds 10 million –
half of which are in Asia
Illiteracy costs the
global economy about
USD1.19 trillion
a year. A country cannot sustain
continuous economic growth if
adult literacy is not above 40%
Studies show that if every
girl across Southwest
Asia completed secondary
school, the number of girls
married by age 15 would
fall by more than 60%
9,232
teachers and
librarians
trained
9.5
books checked
out per student
18 million
books
distributed
(^2003)
India
3 million
children benefitted
No. of Schools: 7,547
Girls’ Education Participants: 8,411
(^1998)
Nepal
2.6 million
children benefitted
No. of Schools: 3,755
Girls’ Education Participants: 4,815
(^2008)
Bangladesh
2.6 million
children benefitted
No. of Schools: 643
Girls’ Education Participants: 1,739
(^2005)
Laos
579,000
children benefitted
No. of Schools: 1,190
Girls’ Education Participants: 2,560
(^2001)
Vietnam
809,000
children benefitted
No. of Schools: 970
Girls’ Education Participants: 4,549
(^2002)
Cambodia
1.4 million
children benefitted
No. of Schools: 1,736
Girls’ Education Participants: 8,463
imp ACt ANd REACh iN AsiA
Room to Read
Data sourced from UNESCO Institute for Statistics, The Globalist Research Center, Project Literacy, Room to ReadRoom to Read also operates in several countries in Africa
The effect of illiteracy is far-reaching:
Correlations have been drawn between
illiteracy and criminality, child marriage
and declines in countries’ GDPs
286
million
INDIA
54
million
CHINA
52
million
PAKISTAN
44
million
BANGLADESH
12
million
INDONESIA
60%
Almost 17%
of the world’s adult
population cannot
read or write
775 million
adults are illiterate
122 million
youth are illiterate
2/3
Female
Male
women
Female
Male
3/5
girls