The bar chart illustrates how literacy rate varied across regions and between genders in 2011. Overall, males have higher literacy rate than females in most regions, especially in South and West Asia, there is a large disparity between male and female.
The four regions with the highest literacy rates are Central Asia, Central/Eastern Europe, East Asian/Pacific and Latin America/Caribbean. Firstly in Central Asia, all genders are 100% literacy.
Secondly, both male and female in central eastern Europe have a literacy rate of 98 per cent. Thirdly, in East Asia the literacy rate for male is around 98 per cent while female is about 94%. finally the Latin America/Caribbean region has a literacy rate of about 95% for male and 90% for female.
The three regions with the lowest literacy rates are Arab states, South and West Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa and also where the gender gap in literacy is the widest. In particular, South and West Asia and Sub-Saharan are the two regions with the lowest levels of education, with literacy rates below 80% for both genders.
