&gt; still lacking even basic education<p>The world literacy rate and trend is supposedly pretty good. However, there are large differences in how literacy is measured and huge uncertainties in the numbers.<p>In some countries you&#x27;re considered to be literate if you can sign your name, in others they just report 99-100% without doing any measurements.<p>UNESCO have plans for a better test to be applied globally, but I&#x27;m not sure any test that would lower the numbers would ever be welcomed.