The variety of Austrians who can barely learn has elevated by virtually 12% in simply over a decade, based on authorities information
Virtually a 3rd of the inhabitants in Austria has poor studying abilities, signaling an alarming pattern, the EU nation’s authorities statistics workplace has stated.
The decline is especially noticeable amongst these with jobs that require medium or low {qualifications}, Statistics Austria stated in an announcement earlier this week.
In Austria, which has a inhabitants of 9 million, a complete of 29.0% or round 2.6 million individuals have a low degree of literacy, based on information on the company’s web site.
The variety of those that have issues with studying elevated by 11.9% between 2012 and 2023, the figures present.
The common literacy degree amongst Austrians aged 16 to 65 stands at 254 factors, which is considerably under the common of 260 factors set by the OECD (Group for Financial Co-operation and Improvement).
Folks from 16 to 24 carried out above the OECD common, whereas older individuals seem to have considerably decrease studying abilities than the anticipated degree, the company stated.
“The variations in studying abilities amongst adults are giant, and this hole has continued to widen,” Tobias Thomas, Director Common of Statistics Austria, was cited as saying.
There was “a very sturdy decline” within the consumption of advanced studying supplies akin to newspapers and magazines, with the Austrians primarily studying emails and different shorter texts, the company famous.
In keeping with Statistics Austria, the variety of these with low day-to-day math abilities additionally grew by 6.7% between 2012 and 2023, amounting to 22.6% of the inhabitants.
Russia’s state-owned pollster VTSIOM stated final yr that “studying stays a well-liked technique of acquiring information and knowledge among the many Russians” regardless of what it referred to as “severe competitors” from visible media.
Within the ballot carried out in November 2024, some 87% of respondents stated that they’d learn one thing over the earlier week. Fiction topped the chart of the most well-liked studying supplies (40%) in Russia, leaving information and social media posts in second place (37%), based on VTSIOM’s figures.
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