For many, learning to read is like learning to swim: it’s a non-negotiable stepping stone that you might struggle with as you practice, but you know that one day you’ll get it. But in some countries, literacy is neither a given nor a right to every person. We looked through our data and found the countries with the lowest literacy rates in the world—one, in particular, that the United States is currently in conflict with. The data comes from the CIA World Factbook , in which literacy is defined as “the ability to read and write at a specified age. [...] Low levels of literacy, and education in general, can impede the economic development of a country in the current rapidly changing, technology-driven world.” We determined that a literacy rate of 55% or lower is considered a pretty severe country-wide issue. Here are the countries that rank in the bottom 17.
