|
Brazil Literacy
Literacy
In 1990 it was estimated that 81 percent of the total population
above age fifteen was literate, or 19 percent illiterate (based
on the inability to sign one's own name). The level of functional
illiteracy--that is, the inability to read newspapers and write
letters--was not measured but was certainly much higher (an estimated
60 percent). As with most social indicators, illiteracy is highest
in rural areas of the Northeast
and North, where the figures are comparable to those in Africa,
and lowest in urban areas of the Southeast
and South, where the figures are comparable with those in the
developed world. For example, southern towns had an adult illiteracy
rate of only 10 percent in 1991, while the rate for children between
the ages of eleven and fourteen was only 3 percent.
Literacy is strongly associated with income. When the population
is divided into five income strata, illiteracy is ten times greater
in the stratum with the lowest income. The illiteracy rate rises
by age- group. The 1991 census also showed a strong racial gradient,
with illiteracy levels of 11.6 percent among whites, 27.4 percent
among mulattoes, and 29.9 percent among blacks. Differences by gender
were not strong. Because of disappointing results when the federal
government undertook a nationwide adult literacy campaign, the Brazilian
Literacy Movement (Movimento Brasileiro de Alfabetização--Mobral),
the emphasis shifted in the 1960s and 1970s to reaching children
through the school system.
Data as of April 1997
|
|
