Share of children reaching sufficient reading comprehension by the end of lower secondary age by country

Countries reporting
53
Highest
87.37
Ireland
Lowest
18.79
Jordan
Median
68.82
Years covered
23
2000–2022
Data points
379

What the numbers show

Share of children reaching sufficient reading comprehension by the end of lower secondary age is currently reported for 53 countries. The highest value is 87.37 in Ireland; the lowest is 18.79 in Jordan.

The median across all reporting countries is 68.82, and the mean is 61.55.

The gap between the highest and lowest reporting country is a factor of about 5.

Over the past decade 6 countries rose and 47 fell. The largest increase was in Qatar (up 36.3%), and the largest decrease in Jordan (down 57.2%).

Share of children reaching sufficient reading comprehension by the end: full country ranking

#Country LatestYear 10-year changeTrend
1 Ireland 87.37 2022 down 1.4% flat
2 South Korea 85.32 2022 down 7.6% falling
3 Estonia 83.54 2022 down 4.7% flat
4 Canada 81.12 2022 down 7.8% falling
5 Denmark 80.79 2022 down 5.0% flat
6 United Kingdom 79.75 2022 down 4.0% falling
7 United States 79 2022 down 3.8% flat
8 Finland 78.31 2022 down 11.3% falling
9 Italy 77.91 2022 down 1.6% flat
10 Australia 77.74 2022 down 7.3% falling
11 Russia 77.52 2018 up 7.8% rising
12 Poland 76.68 2022 down 12.1% rising
13 Croatia 76.29 2022 down 4.7% flat
14 Latvia 75.98 2022 down 6.7% flat
15 Czechia 75.39 2022 down 5.4% flat
16 Sweden 75.17 2022 down 1.5% falling
17 Lithuania 74.47 2022 down 4.5% flat
18 Switzerland 74.45 2022 down 12.2% falling
19 Austria 73.52 2022 down 7.5% falling
20 Slovenia 73.37 2022 down 5.7% falling
21 Norway 72.35 2022 down 13.3% falling
22 France 71.92 2022 down 8.8% falling
23 Spain 71.73 2022 down 1.7% rising
24 Portugal 71.38 2022 up 0.7% rising
25 Hungary 70.89 2022 down 8.0% falling
26 Israel 69.3 2022 down 7.4% rising
27 Germany 68.82 2022 down 12.8% flat
28 Turkey 68.14 2022 down 0.8% rising
29 Belgium 67.91 2022 down 3.8% rising
30 Chile 64.72 2022 down 0.4% rising
31 Slovakia 63.91 2022 down 10.1% falling
32 Serbia 62.8 2022 down 4.3% rising
33 Luxembourg 61.18 2018 down 1.0% rising
34 Greece 59.76 2022 down 18.6% falling
35 Iceland 59.68 2022 down 23.6% falling
36 Netherlands 58.07 2022 down 25.0% falling
37 Romania 54.17 2022 down 7.3% rising
38 Qatar 52.44 2022 up 36.3% rising
39 Mexico 46.67 2022 down 4.8% rising
40 Montenegro 46.1 2022 down 16.1% rising
41 Bulgaria 44.3 2022 down 21.5% falling
42 Brazil 43.46 2022 up 12.6% rising
43 Uruguay 41.2 2022 up 12.9% flat
44 Malaysia 41.07 2022 down 7.5% falling
45 Costa Rica 38.39 2022 down 9.9% falling
46 Colombia 38.38 2022 up 3.9% rising
47 Kazakhstan 36.11 2022 down 15.4% falling
48 Argentina 35.85 2022 down 1.2% falling
49 Thailand 31.08 2022 down 45.7% falling
50 Albania 25.43 2022 down 44.4% rising
51 Indonesia 22.87 2022 down 35.7% rising
52 Tunisia 19.83 2015 down 22.0% rising
53 Jordan 18.79 2022 down 57.2% falling

Share, cite or embed this page

Cite this page

Share of children reaching sufficient reading comprehension by the end by country. Statizoid, drawing on Our World in Data. Retrieved 28 August 2026, from https://reference.statizoid.com/stat/share-of-children-reaching-sufficient-reading-comprehension-by-the-end-of-lower-secondary/

Embed or link this data

Paste this into a page to link back to these figures. The data itself is free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 (Our World in Data); please keep the attribution.

<a href="https://reference.statizoid.com/stat/share-of-children-reaching-sufficient-reading-comprehension-by-the-end-of-lower-secondary/">Share of children reaching sufficient reading comprehension by the end by country</a> — Statizoid

About this data

Indicator
Share of children reaching sufficient reading comprehension by the end of lower secondary age
Source
Our World in Data
Licence
CC BY 4.0 (Our World in Data)
Coverage
53 places, 379 data points, 2000–2022
Last refreshed