Share of 10-year-olds in low- and middle-income countries who are unable to read and understand a simple text. A combined measure of schooling deprivation (out-of-school) and learning deprivation (below minimum reading proficiency), introduced by the World Bank and the UNESCO Institute for Statistics in 2019.
How to read it
Readings above the normal line are worse than normal, so they plot downward here; readings below it are better.
This indicator’s slice of Factrail’s verified causal web — the people, facts, drivers and welfare indicators it connects to. Select any node to trace a path.
By the Factrail desk · Method: how we source and score · Last reviewed
Measured value over time. Its norm (0.0 % of 10-year-olds) is far off this scale, marked at the bottom edge, so the series stays worse than normal throughout — the deviation badge shows the gap.
Each driver linked to this indicator, strongest pull first, on the same timeline above. Markers are the facts that moved that driver. These are modelled influences — treat them as correlational unless a documented causal edge is shown.
Teacher quality is the most proximate in-school driver of foundational reading; improvements reduce (weaken) learning poverty.
Teacher Quality and Supply: raises welfare, impact strength 70%, 0 linked facts on the timeline.Higher, well-targeted public funding supports teachers and materials that improve foundational reading, reducing (weakening) the learning poverty rate over a multi-year lag.
Public Education Funding: raises welfare, impact strength 60%, 0 linked facts on the timeline.Peer-calibrated public path from a documented driver onto an indicator that already carries public data and a NormalLine.
Private Military Formation Activity: raises welfare, impact strength 40%, 0 linked facts on the timeline.Where present, digital access buffers learning loss (e.g. during closures), modestly reducing learning poverty; absence of access conversely deepens it, so the link is real but low-confidence.
Digital Learning Access: raises welfare, impact strength 40%, 0 linked facts on the timeline.