Literacy rate — all countries

Literacy rate — Samoa

Literacy rate in Samoa in 2019 — 97.99%. Ranked 12 in the world out of 56. Since 1991, the indicator has risen by 0.05 pp.

2019 97.99% −1.72 pp vs 2017
World rank 12of 56
Period maximum 99.71%2017
Period minimum 97.94%1991

Trend over time

1991–2019 · % of population aged 15+

Literacy rate — Samoa, 1991–201997.59898.59999.510019911994199720002003200620092012201520181991: 97.94%2011: 98.97%2016: 99.4%2017: 99.71%2019: 97.99%
Change over the period: +0.05 pp Annual average: 0 pp

Comparison, 2019

How the value compares with the world and the groups this territory belongs to: Samoa

Samoa 97.99%
World 86.79%
Literacy rate — Samoa, by year Samoa All countries CSV XLSX
Year % Change, pp
2019 97.99
2017 99.71 +0.31 pp
2016 99.4
2011 98.97
1991 97.94

Polynesia, 2019

The same indicator for neighboring countries — with links to their pages

WS Samoa 97.99 TO Tonga 91.05

About the indicator

The share of the population aged 15 and older able to read and write a short simple statement about their everyday life. The UNESCO definition is deliberately minimal — it is the threshold of functional literacy, not an assessment of the quality of education. In most countries the data come from censuses and surveys, so they are updated irregularly.

Important: The series is incomplete: values are published only for the years in which a census or a literacy survey was conducted.

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), license CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.