Band 6+: The bar chart below shows estimated world illiteracy rates by region and by gender for the last year. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant. You should write at least 150 words.

The bar chart above illustrates the world illiteracy rates by region, and by gender for the past year.

In terms of gender and illiteracy rates, females had an overall higher illiteracy rate than men in all six regions where data was collected from, with the highest rate for women being around 55% in South Asia. This is a significant portion of women being illiterate, especially when compared to the men’s illiteracy rate of only 35% in the same region.

In terms of region, when taking both male and female illiteracy rates into account, the order of regions from lowest to highest illiteracy rates goes developed countries, Latin America, East Asia, South Africa, Arabian states, and South Asia, ranging from less than 5% in developed countries to around 35 to 55% in south Asia. Although discrepancies do exist in the male illiteracy rates order, for example, Latin America coming before East Asia, but actually having a higher rate of male illiteracy, there is still an overall increasing trend of illiteracy within this list of regions that serves future data analysis well.