Adult skills

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Related Publication

The Survey of Adult Skills: Reader's Companion, Second Edition

Compare your country is a service provided by the OECD. You are invited to share this tool or to embed it into your website. OECD Terms and Conditions apply.
Proficiency in literacy, numeracy and problem solving differs widely across the countries and economies who participated in the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). On average, adults in the highest performing countries have a more than 80 score-point advantage (or more than ten years of formal schooling) on the literacy and numeracy dimensions over the adult population in the lowest performing countries.
Pass cursor over table headings for detailed indicator definition. Click on table headings to order countries on the selected indicator.
Country
Literacy, points, 2013-16
Numeracy, points, 2013-16
Problem solving, %, 2013-16
Australia AUS 280 268 38
Austria AUT 270 275 33
Canada CAN 274 266 37
Chile CHL 220 206 15
Czech Republic CZE 274 276 33
Denmark DNK 271 278 39
England (UK) England (UK) 273 262 35
Estonia EST 276 273 28
Finland FIN 288 282 42
Flanders (BEL) Flanders (BEL) 276 280 35
France FRA 262 254
Germany DEU 270 272 36
Greece GRC 254 252 14
Ireland IRL 267 256 25
Israel ISR 255 251 27
Italy ITA 251 247
Japan JPN 296 288 35
Korea KOR 273 263 30
Netherlands NLD 284 280 42
New Zealand NZL 281 271 44
N. Ireland (UK) N. Ireland (UK) 269 259 29
Norway NOR 278 278 41
Poland POL 267 260 19
Slovak Republic SVK 274 276 26
Slovenia SVN 256 258 25
Spain ESP 252 246
Sweden SWE 279 279 44
Turkey TUR 227 219 8
United States USA 270 253 31
OECD OECD 268 263 31
Cyprus CYP 269 265
Jakarta (IDN) Jakarta (IDN) 200 210
Lithuania LTU 267 267 18
Russia RUS 275 270 26
Singapore SGP 258 257 37