Adult literacy rate is the percentage of people ages 15 and above who can both read and write with understanding a short simple statement about their everyday life.

The reading performances among upper secondary students in Iceland increased by the level of socio-economic background in 2018. While students from the top quarter scored 510 in the PISA test, students from the bottom quarter scored 437.

The educational attainment level of the population in Iceland in 2022 showed that more people have upper secondary education or tertiary education than basic education. In 2022, 36 percent of Icelanders had an upper secondary education level. A higher share of Icelandic women than men have a tertiary education.

IS: School Enrollment: Preprimary: % Gross data was reported at 97.486 % in 2015. This records a decrease from the previous number of 97.860 % for 2014. IS: School Enrollment: Preprimary: % Gross data is updated yearly, averaging 96.397 % from Dec 1972 (Median) to 2015, with 37 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 109.567 % in 1987 and a record low of 56.788 % in 1972. IS: School Enrollment: Preprimary: % Gross data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Iceland – Table IS.World Bank.WDI: Education Statistics. Gross enrollment ratio is the ratio of total enrollment, regardless of age, to the population of the age group that officially corresponds to the level of education shown. Preprimary education refers to programs at the initial stage of organized instruction, designed primarily to introduce very young children to a school-type environment and to provide a bridge between home and school.; ; UNESCO Institute for Statistics; Weighted average; Each economy is classified based on the classification of World Bank Group's fiscal year 2018 (July 1, 2017-June 30, 2018).

In Iceland, women generally have a higher educational level than men. While close to 46 percent of Icelandic women have a tertiary education, less than 30 percent of men have the same. 42 percent of men in Iceland have an upper secondary education, whereas a little more than 30 percent of the women have the same. Despite this, women earn averagely less than men in Iceland.

In Iceland, girls tend to have more positive feelings towards reading than boys have. While almost 30 percent of the girls said that reading was one of their favorite hobbies, fewer than 20 percent of the boys said the same. Furthermore, while 60 percent of the boys said that they read only to get needed information, only around 40 percent of the girls said the same.

What is the shape of the association between schoolwork-related anxiety (SRA; sometimes referred to as “test anxiety”) and science literacy proficiency (SLP)? Prior results in some areas (e.g., Flanders) have showed an inverse linear relationship between SRA and SLP. Intriguingly, academic anxiety showed an inverse “U-shaped” association with academic performance in Taiwan. Data for six southeast Asian (SEA; Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Macao, Singapore, Taiwan) and six northwest European (NWE; Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands) nations/entities were drawn from PISA 2015, the most recent science-focused iteration of OECD’s (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) triennial PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) evaluations. Mean SRA and SLP, respectively, were 0.34 and 532 across the selected SEA representatives (aggregate n = 35711) and −0.21 and 515 across the identified NWE nations (n = 34601). We sorted each nation’s/entity’s dataset into five SLP levels (utilizing PISA’s own criteria) and placed students into SLP levels based on an average of ten plausible values for each individual student). ANOVA results showed Taiwan, Japan, and Korea, (with some qualified evidence for SEA as a region) to have an inverse U-shaped relationship between SRA and SLP; Finland, and Iceland (along with modest evidence for NWE as a region) had a negative linear relationship between SRA and SLP. Multilevel modeling (MLM; within nations/entities only) partially confirmed our parallel ANOVA results: an inverse U-shaped relationship for Taiwan, and the negative linear relationship for Finland and Iceland. Our Belgian MLM also showed negative linearity. Thus, our results confirmed the earlier observation of an inverse U-shaped relationship between student anxiety measures and academic performance in Taiwan (extending that finding to a science context—and further extending that finding for science to Japan and Korea). We discuss possible classroom interventions aimed at mitigating non-adaptive anxieties among students at intermediate SLP levels.

What is the shape of the association between schoolwork-related anxiety (SRA; sometimes referred to as “test anxiety”) and science literacy proficiency (SLP)? Prior results in some areas (e.g., Flanders) have showed an inverse linear relationship between SRA and SLP. Intriguingly, academic anxiety showed an inverse “U-shaped” association with academic performance in Taiwan. Data for six southeast Asian (SEA; Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Macao, Singapore, Taiwan) and six northwest European (NWE; Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands) nations/entities were drawn from PISA 2015, the most recent science-focused iteration of OECD’s (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) triennial PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) evaluations. Mean SRA and SLP, respectively, were 0.34 and 532 across the selected SEA representatives (aggregate n = 35711) and −0.21 and 515 across the identified NWE nations (n = 34601). We sorted each nation’s/entity’s dataset into five SLP levels (utilizing PISA’s own criteria) and placed students into SLP levels based on an average of ten plausible values for each individual student). ANOVA results showed Taiwan, Japan, and Korea, (with some qualified evidence for SEA as a region) to have an inverse U-shaped relationship between SRA and SLP; Finland, and Iceland (along with modest evidence for NWE as a region) had a negative linear relationship between SRA and SLP. Multilevel modeling (MLM; within nations/entities only) partially confirmed our parallel ANOVA results: an inverse U-shaped relationship for Taiwan, and the negative linear relationship for Finland and Iceland. Our Belgian MLM also showed negative linearity. Thus, our results confirmed the earlier observation of an inverse U-shaped relationship between student anxiety measures and academic performance in Taiwan (extending that finding to a science context—and further extending that finding for science to Japan and Korea). We discuss possible classroom interventions aimed at mitigating non-adaptive anxieties among students at intermediate SLP levels.

According to the Global Gender Gap Report 2020, 88 percent of females worldwide had primary education, compared to 91 percent of males. By comparison, more females than males had attained tertiary education. The Global Gender Index benchmarks national gender gaps on economic, political, education, and health-based criteria. In 2020, the leading country was Iceland with a score of 0.87.