Literacy Rate: Zambia

Analysis# Zambia Literacy Rate Zambia's literacy rate stands at 71.77% in 2024, representing a net gain of 10.4 percentage points since 1990 when it measured 65%. Despite this overall improvement, the country remains 11.37 percentage points below its all-time peak of 83.14% recorded in 2010. The trajectory reveals significant volatility: after steady growth through the early 2000s, literacy rates peaked a decade ago, then experienced a sharp decline through the late 2010s and early 2020s. The most striking trend is the sharp contraction from 2010 onward. Rates dropped from the 83.14% peak to 71.13% by 2018, a loss of 12 percentage points in eight years. A brief recovery to 81.75% in 2020 proved temporary, with subsequent declines bringing the rate to current levels. This recent downward momentum raises questions about educational access and quality in Zambia, suggesting renewed policy attention is needed to reverse the erosion of literacy gains achieved in the previous decade.