Signal Global adult literacy up from 81% to 88% since 2000

Summary

The share of adults worldwide who can read and write has climbed from 81% in 2000 to 88% today. EY uses this rise to show that investment in education pays off by widening opportunity and expanding productive capacity. It applies the same reasoning it uses for corporate training to education infrastructure at the level of whole economies. EY places this within a broader pivot toward investing in infrastructure that grows human resources. It stresses, as with migration, that effective education investment depends on collaboration between the public and private sectors.