Philippines: Literacy rate, adult male (% of males ages 15 and above)

Key figures

How it compares

See how every economy compares in the full ranking.

Closest to Philippines in the 2020 ranking

• Indonesia — 2nd of 3: 97.45%
• Kuwait — 3rd of 3: 97.05%

What this measures

Adult literacy rate is the percentage of people ages 15 and above who can both read and write with understanding a short simple statement about their everyday life.

Limitations: In practice, literacy is difficult to measure. Estimating literacy rates requires census or survey measurements under controlled conditions. Many countries report the number of literate people from self-reported data. Some use educational attainment data as a proxy but apply different lengths of school attendance or levels of completion. And there is a trend among recent national and international surveys toward using a direct reading test of literacy skills. Because definitions and methods of data collection differ across countries, data should be used cautiously.

Regional and income-group figures are computed by the World Bank as a weighted average.

All 11 values

Literacy rate, adult male (% of males ages 15 and above) in nearby economies

• Cambodia — 90.29% (2023)
• Indonesia — 97.45% (2020)
• Singapore — 98.94% (2021)
• Thailand — 90.67% (2022)

More education data for Philippines

• Primary school starting age (years) — 6 (2025)
• Primary education, duration (years) — 6 (2025)
• Lower secondary school starting age (years) — 12 (2025)
• Secondary education, duration (years) — 6 (2025)
• Primary education, teachers — 527,504 (2024)
• Primary education, pupils — 13.06 million (2024)
• School enrollment, primary (% gross) — 94.03% (2024)
• Secondary education, pupils — 11.87 million (2024)
• School enrollment, secondary (% gross) — 85.29% (2024)
• School enrollment, tertiary (% gross) — 47.41% (2024)

Reading data like this

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Questions people ask

What is Philippines's literacy rate, adult male (% of males ages 15 and above)?

98.41% in 2020, according to the World Bank (World Development Indicators).

How has it changed since 1980?

It is up 14.52 percentage points from 83.89% in 1980. The highest value was 98.41% in 2020 and the lowest 83.89% in 1980.

Where does this data come from?

The World Bank's World Development Indicators, licensed CC BY 4.0. Original source: Data API, UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), uri: https://databrowser.uis.unesco.org/resources, note: The data are obtained through the UIS API..

Source

World Bank, World Development Indicators, indicator SE.ADT.LITR.MA.ZS, licensed CC BY 4.0. Original source: Data API, UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), uri: https://databrowser.uis.unesco.org/resources, note: The data are obtained through the UIS API. Figures are fetched from the World Bank API and refreshed monthly; see the series on data.worldbank.org. The full definition and method are in the World Bank's metadata glossary. Comparisons use the same World Bank release.

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