Literacy rate, adult total (% of people ages 15 and above) in Zambia was reported at 87.5 % in 2020, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. Zambia - Literacy rate, adult total (% of people ages 15 and above) - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on June of 2025.

Zambia literacy rate for 2020 was 87.50%, a 16.37% increase from 2018.

<ul style='margin-top:20px;'>

<li>Zambia literacy rate for 2018 was <strong>71.13%</strong>, a <strong>11.87% decline</strong> from 2010.</li>
<li>Zambia literacy rate for 2010 was <strong>83.00%</strong>, a <strong>21.87% increase</strong> from 2007.</li>
<li>Zambia literacy rate for 2007 was <strong>61.13%</strong>, a <strong>7.87% decline</strong> from 2002.</li>
</ul>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.

Zambia ZM: Literacy Rate: Adult Female: % of Females Aged 15 and Above data was reported at 77.747 % in 2010. This records an increase from the previous number of 51.787 % for 2007. Zambia ZM: Literacy Rate: Adult Female: % of Females Aged 15 and Above data is updated yearly, averaging 59.803 % from Dec 1990 (Median) to 2010, with 5 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 77.747 % in 2010 and a record low of 51.787 % in 2007. Zambia ZM: Literacy Rate: Adult Female: % of Females Aged 15 and Above data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Zambia – Table ZM.World Bank.WDI: Education Statistics. 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.; ; 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).

Zambia ZM: Literacy Rate: Adult: % of People Aged 15 and Above data was reported at 83.008 % in 2010. This records an increase from the previous number of 61.428 % for 2007. Zambia ZM: Literacy Rate: Adult: % of People Aged 15 and Above data is updated yearly, averaging 68.002 % from Dec 1990 (Median) to 2010, with 5 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 83.008 % in 2010 and a record low of 61.428 % in 2007. Zambia ZM: Literacy Rate: Adult: % of People Aged 15 and Above data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Zambia – Table ZM.World Bank.WDI: Education Statistics. 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.; ; 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).

Zambia ZM: Literacy Rate: Adult Male: % of Males Aged 15 and Above data was reported at 88.684 % in 2010. This records an increase from the previous number of 71.947 % for 2007. Zambia ZM: Literacy Rate: Adult Male: % of Males Aged 15 and Above data is updated yearly, averaging 76.254 % from Dec 1990 (Median) to 2010, with 5 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 88.684 % in 2010 and a record low of 71.947 % in 2007. Zambia ZM: Literacy Rate: Adult Male: % of Males Aged 15 and Above data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Zambia – Table ZM.World Bank.WDI: Education Statistics. 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.; ; 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).

Elderly literacy rate, population 65+ years, both sexes (%) in Zambia was reported at 60.2 % in 2018, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. Zambia - Elderly literacy rate, population 65+ years, both sexes - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on May of 2025.

Literacy rate, adult male (% of males ages 15 and above) in Zambia was reported at 91 % in 2020, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. Zambia - Literacy rate, adult male (% of males ages 15 and above) - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on June of 2025.

Zambia ZM: Literacy Rate: Youth Female: % of Females Aged 15-24 data was reported at 86.509 % in 2010. This records an increase from the previous number of 58.478 % for 2007. Zambia ZM: Literacy Rate: Youth Female: % of Females Aged 15-24 data is updated yearly, averaging 66.227 % from Dec 1990 (Median) to 2010, with 5 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 86.509 % in 2010 and a record low of 58.478 % in 2007. Zambia ZM: Literacy Rate: Youth Female: % of Females Aged 15-24 data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Zambia – Table ZM.World Bank.WDI: Education Statistics. Youth literacy rate is the percentage of people ages 15-24 who can both read and write with understanding a short simple statement about their everyday life.; ; 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).

Zambia: Youth literacy rate, ages 15-24: The latest value from 2020 is 93.2 percent, an increase from 77.69 percent in 2018. In comparison, the world average is 92.76 percent, based on data from 37 countries. Historically, the average for Zambia from 1990 to 2020 is 75.42 percent. The minimum value, 64.05 percent, was reached in 2007 while the maximum of 93.2 percent was recorded in 2020.

Literacy rate, youth male (% of males ages 15-24) in Zambia was reported at 93.5 % in 2020, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. Zambia - Literacy rate, youth male (% of males ages 15-24) - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on June of 2025.

Zambia ZM: Literacy Rate: Youth Male: % of Males Aged 15-24 data was reported at 91.196 % in 2010. This records an increase from the previous number of 70.308 % for 2007. Zambia ZM: Literacy Rate: Youth Male: % of Males Aged 15-24 data is updated yearly, averaging 72.616 % from Dec 1990 (Median) to 2010, with 5 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 91.196 % in 2010 and a record low of 67.269 % in 1990. Zambia ZM: Literacy Rate: Youth Male: % of Males Aged 15-24 data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Zambia – Table ZM.World Bank.WDI: Education Statistics. Youth literacy rate is the percentage of people ages 15-24 who can both read and write with understanding a short simple statement about their everyday life.; ; 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).

Literacy rate, youth female (% of females ages 15-24) in Zambia was reported at 92.8 % in 2020, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. Zambia - Literacy rate, youth female (% of females ages 15-24) - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on June of 2025.

Elderly literacy rate, population 65+ years, female (%) in Zambia was reported at 46.86 % in 2018, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. Zambia - Elderly literacy rate, population 65+ years, female - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on June of 2025.

Zambia ZM: Gender Parity Index (GPI): Literacy Rate: Youth Aged 15-24 data was reported at 0.949 Ratio in 2010. This records an increase from the previous number of 0.832 Ratio for 2007. Zambia ZM: Gender Parity Index (GPI): Literacy Rate: Youth Aged 15-24 data is updated yearly, averaging 0.912 Ratio from Dec 1990 (Median) to 2010, with 5 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 0.974 Ratio in 1990 and a record low of 0.832 Ratio in 2007. Zambia ZM: Gender Parity Index (GPI): Literacy Rate: Youth Aged 15-24 data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Zambia – Table ZM.World Bank.WDI: Education Statistics. Gender parity index for youth literacy rate is the ratio of females to males ages 15-24 who can both read and write with understanding a short simple statement about their everyday life.; ; 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).

Elderly literacy rate, population 65+ years, male (%) in Zambia was reported at 80.93 % in 2018, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. Zambia - Elderly literacy rate, population 65+ years, male - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on June of 2025.

The number of persons age 25 to 64 who are literate divided by the total population age 25 to 64. Literate persons are identified using the IPUMS LIT variable (LIT = 2). Censuses provide differing criteria with respect to the level of ability that should constitute literacy. These differences are generally evident in the varying wording of the instructions to the census enumerators. Typically, the instructions appear to be aimed at distinguishing persons who have memorized how to write their signature or recognize certain words from those that can truly write and comprehend text they read. Some samples identify "semi-literate" persons who can read but cannot write in the unharmonized source variables. In all samples those persons are considered illiterate in LIT. For more information, see https://international.ipums.org/international-action/variables/LIT#description_section.This dataset contains all existing disagregations and, and the latest vintage data for the indicator.Each disaggregation is in a separate column. There is a single row per geography.Data download: CSV File Shape File File GeodatabaseDomain: EDUCATION Subdomain: LiteracyGeography Level: CountryMeasure: PercentageUniverse: Persons age 25-64Age Universe: 25-64Sex Universe: BothMarital Status Universe: All

Abstract

The Southern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ) is a consortium of Ministries of Education and Culture located in the Southern Africa subregion. This consortium works in close partnership with the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP). SACMEQ’s main aim is to undertake co-operative educational policy research in order to generate information that can be used by decision-makers to plan the quality of education. SACMEQ’s programme of educational policy research has four features which have optimized its contributions to the field of educational planning: (1) it provides research-based policy advice concerning high-priority educational quality issues that have been identified by key decision-makers in Southern Africa, (2) it functions as a co-operative venture based on a strong network of Ministries of Education and Culture, (3) it combines research and training components that are linked with institutional capacity building, and its future directions are defined by participating ministries. In each participating country, a National Research Co-ordinator is responsible for implementing SACMEQ’s projects.

The SACMEQ I Project commenced in 1995 and was completed in 1999. The SACMEQ I main data collection was implemented in seven SACMEQ Ministries of Education (Kenya, Mauritius, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, Zanzibar, and Zimbabwe). The study provided "agendas for government action" concerning: educational inputs to schools, benchmark standards for educational provision, equity in the allocation of educational resources, and the reading literacy performance of Grade 6 learners. The data collection for this project included information gathered from around 20,000 learners; 3,000 teachers; and 1,000 school principals.

This co-operative sub-regional educational research project collected data in order to guide decisionmaking in these countries with respect to questions around high priority policy issues. These included: • What are the baseline data for selected inputs to primary schools? • How do the conditions of primary schooling compare with the Ministry of Education and Culture’s own bench-mark standards? • Have educational inputs to schools been allocated in an equitable fashion? • What is the basic literacy level among pupils in upper primary school? • Which educational inputs to primary schools have most impact on pupil reading achievement at the upper primary level?

In 1995 there were five fully active members of SACMEQ: Mauritius, Namibia, Zambia, Tanzania (Zanzibar), and Zimbabwe. These Ministries of Education and Culture participated in all phases of SACMEQ’s establishment and its initial educational policy research project. There are also four partially active members of SACMEQ: Kenya, Tanzania (Mainland), Malawi, and Swaziland. These Ministries of Education and Culture have made contributions to the preparation of the Project Plan for SACMEQ’s initial educational policy research project. Three other countries (Botswana, Lesotho, and South Africa) had observer status due to their involvement in SACMEQ related training workshops or their participation in some elements of the preparation of the first proposal for launching SACMEQ.

Geographic coverage

National coverage.

Analysis unit

• Pupils
• Schools
• Teachers

Universe

The target population for SACMEQ's Initial Project was defined as "all pupils at the Grade 6 level in 1995 who were attending registered government or non-government schools". Grade 6 was chosen because it was the grade level where the basics of reading literacy were expected to have been acquired.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

A stratified two-stage sample design was used to select around 150 schools in each country. Pupils were then selected within these schools by drawing simple random samples. A more detailed explanation of the sampling process is available under the 'Sampling' section of the report provided as external resources.

All sample designs applied in the study were selected so as to meet the standards set down by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (Ross, 1991). These standards required (a) a response rate of at least 90 percent for schools and, where necessary, sampling weights to be calculated to remove the potential for bias that may arise from different probabilities of selection, and (b) to have sampling errors that allow generalizations to be made from the sample to the total learner population with a 95 percent certainty of being correct within plus or minus 5 percent for a percentage, and one tenth of a learner standard deviation unit for a mean.

The desired target population in Namibia was 'all learners at the Grade 6 level in 1995 at the eighth month of the school year who were attending government or registered private schools in the country'. The sample had to be selected early in 1995 at a stage when no information was available on 1995 enrolments. Schools were thus selected on the basis of their August 1994 Grade 6 enrolments. It was decided to exclude two very remote schools which were not typical (Oranjemund Private School and Gam Primary School), the Eluwa school for deaf and blind children, and schools which had fewer than 10 learners in Grade 6 in 1994. The schools with very low Grade 6 enrolment were excluded to avoid the complications of having to create groups of 20 learners by clustering several schools into 'pseudo schools'. The percentage of learners thus excluded was very small, while the number of excluded schools was 37 out of 708 schools; these schools accounted for only 0.7 percent of learners in the desired population. Schools were stratified by education region. A division into urban and rural would have required a subjective classification. There are relatively few private schools in Namibia, of which many are staffed by government, and hence the distinction between private and government schools was not made. The resultant numbers of schools and learners in each of the education regions have been given in Table 2.2 of the Survey Report provided as external resources.

From the defined population a probability sample of schools was drawn, with the probability being proportional to a school's 1994 enrolment in Grade 6. A minimum of 20 schools was chosen in each education region to ensure that the regional population mean scores would be estimated within +5 percent with a 95 percent probability. Sampling weights were applied in the final analysis to adjust the results in such a way as to adjust for different probabilities of selection which included adjustments for the different sizes of the regions. Corrections were also made for data missing as a result of, for example, absenteeism. The national sample included 158 schools, of which two very large schools each represented a learner enrolment equivalent to two schools, thus bringing the number of 'schools' to 160.As already stated, the first stage of sampling involved selecting schools with a probability proportional to the number of learners who were members of the defined target population.To achieve this, a 'random start - constant interval' procedure (Ross, 1992) was applied. In one region, Rundu, there were schools with the number of Grade 6 learners exceeding the 'constant interval', and therefore each of these schools was randomly divided into smaller 'pseudo schools' before the commencement of the actual sampling.

Sampling deviation

In each school selected at the first stage of sampling, two Grade 6 classes were randomly selected with a probability proportional to the number of learners in each class if the school had more than one class, otherwise the single class was included in the sample. Out of each of these classes, 20 learners were randomly selected to avoid overcrowding during the test administration and because the accuracy of sampling does not increase significantly if more learners are tested. This procedure deviated from the technique applied by the other SACMEQ countries, which randomly selected 20 learners out of all Grade 6 learners in each selected school. Namibia had chosen this procedure as it intended to undertake a multi-level analysis (the levels being learner, class, and school) and thus had to test a sufficient number of learners in each class represented in the sample. This, however, implied that where there were more than two classes in Grade 6 in a school, then the within-school variance might be either overestimated or underestimated because there was the possibility of streaming within schools. The planned sample size and the actual number of learners tested have been shown in Table 2.3.of the Survey Report provided as external resources. Between zero percent and 1.7 percent of the differences between planned and achieved learners can be ascribed to small schools in the sample, with less than 20 Grade 6 enrolments; the rest of the differences resulted from learner absenteeism on the day of testing.

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

The data collection for SACMEQ's Initial Project took place in October 1995 and involved the administration of questionnaires to pupils, teachers, and school heads. The pupil questionnaire contained questions about the pupils' home backgrounds and their school life; the teacher questionnaire asked about classrooms, teaching practices, working conditions, and teacher housing; and the school head questionnaire collected information about teachers, enrolments, buildings, facilities, and management. A reading literacy test was also given to the pupils. The

Literacy rate, youth (ages 15-24), gender parity index (GPI) in Zambia was reported at 0.99251 % in 2020, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. Zambia - Ratio of young literate females to males (% ages 15-24) - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on June of 2025.

The number of persons age 65 or older who are literate divided by the total population age 65 or older. Literate persons are identified using the IPUMS LIT variable (LIT = 2). Censuses provide differing criteria with respect to the level of ability that should constitute literacy. These differences are generally evident in the varying wording of the instructions to the census enumerators. Typically, the instructions appear to be aimed at distinguishing persons who have memorized how to write their signature or recognize certain words from those that can truly write and comprehend text they read. Some samples identify "semi-literate" persons who can read but cannot write in the unharmonized source variables. In all samples those persons are considered illiterate in LIT. For more information, see https://international.ipums.org/international-action/variables/LIT#description_section.This dataset contains all existing disagregations and, and the latest vintage data for the indicator.Each disaggregation is in a separate column. There is a single row per geography.Data download: CSV File Shape File File GeodatabaseDomain: EDUCATION Subdomain: LiteracyGeography Level: CountryMeasure: PercentageUniverse: Persons age 65+Age Universe: 65+Sex Universe: BothMarital Status Universe: All

87,5 (%) in 2020. Adult (15+) literacy rate (%). Total is the percentage of the population age 15 and above who can, with understanding, read and write a short, simple statement on their everyday life. Generally, ‘literacy’ also encompasses ‘numeracy’, the ability to make simple arithmetic calculations. This indicator is calculated by dividing the number of literates aged 15 years and over by the corresponding age group population and multiplying the result by 100.