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Data

Share of children achieving minimum reading proficiency by the end of primary age

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Global Education

What you should know about this indicator

  • This indicator measures the share of children or students who achieve minimum proficiency in reading or mathematics by the end of a given education level (primary or lower secondary).
  • Minimum proficiency in and is defined differently at each education level:
  • At the end of primary education, minimum reading proficiency means students can identify key ideas in simple texts and connect them to their own experiences. In mathematics, it means demonstrating number sense and computation, basic measurement, interpreting simple graphs, spatial orientation, and number patterns.
  • At the end of lower secondary education, minimum reading proficiency means students can connect ideas across different types of texts, understand the author’s intent, and draw conclusions based on the text. In mathematics, it means applying computation skills, solving real-world problems, interpreting graphs and tables, and using algebraic representations.
  • There are two types of estimates: one for all children in the age group, and one for students who are enrolled in school.
  • Estimates for all children adjust for school completion and enrolment, offering a full population-level view — including those who dropped out or were never enrolled.
  • Estimates for students reflect outcomes only among those still in school at the end of the education cycle.
  • Data comes from international assessments such as TIMSS, PIRLS, or PISA, combined with completion and enrolment data from surveys or statistical models.
Share of children achieving minimum reading proficiency by the end of primary age
Percentage of children at school age meeting minimum reading proficiency by the end of education. This data accounts for school completion rates to estimate reading skills for all children, not just those in school.
Source
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2025) – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
May 1, 2025
Next expected update
May 2026
Date range
2000–2023
Unit
%

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Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

The UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) is the official and trusted source of internationally-comparable data on education, science, culture and communication. As the official statistical agency of UNESCO, the UIS produces a wide range of state-of-the-art databases to fuel the policies and investments needed to transform lives and propel the world towards its development goals. The UIS provides free access to data for all UNESCO countries and regional groupings from 1970 to the most recent year available.

Retrieved on
May 1, 2025
Retrieved from
https://databrowser.uis.unesco.org/resources/bulk
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), Education, https://uis.unesco.org/bdds, 2025

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

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Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
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Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Share of children achieving minimum reading proficiency by the end of primary age”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Veronika Samborska, Natasha Ahuja, Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, and Max Roser (2023) - “Global Education”. Data adapted from UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20250716-141306/grapher/share-of-children-achieving-minimum-reading-proficiency-by-the-end-of-primary-education.html [online resource] (archived on July 16, 2025).
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2025) – with minor processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2025) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Share of children achieving minimum reading proficiency by the end of primary age” [dataset]. UNESCO Institute for Statistics, “UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) - Education” [original data]. Retrieved July 19, 2025 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20250716-141306/grapher/share-of-children-achieving-minimum-reading-proficiency-by-the-end-of-primary-education.html (archived on July 16, 2025).