TurkStat data reveal 2.66 million turks illiterate

TurkStat data reveal 2.66 million turks illiterate –

Zaman Daily – The Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) recently released statistics on education from 2014, revealing that the rate of illiteracy in Turkey for those aged 6 and above is estimated at 3.87 percent, representing approximately 2.66 million people.

According to the data, released this week on TurkStat’s website, the literacy rate of those aged 6 and above in Turkey is 96.13 percent.

As literacy is recorded by provinces, the southwestern province of Antalya boasts the highest rate, at 98.52 percent, followed by the provinces of İzmir and Tekirdağ, with 98.15 percent and 98.14 percent, respectively. The least literate is the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa, followed by Mardin and the eastern province of Siirt, with about 10 percent of the population aged over 6 years illiterate.

There is a significant difference in literacy rates among males and females. While the illiteracy rate of males stands at around 1.32 percent, the rate of illiterate females is approximately 6.44 percent, with more than 2.2 million women in Turkey unable to read or write.

The TurkStat data also shows the levels of citizens’ education. According to the data, 25.81 percent of the relevant population has only completed primary school, while 21.92 percent holds a high school diploma. While the percentage of those who have graduated from an institute of higher education is 12.95, 1.01 percent hold a master’s degree, and 0.28 percent a Ph.D.

The province of Ankara has the highest percentage of people who have graduated from an institute of higher education, around 20 percent, followed by Eskişehir, İzmir, İstanbul and Tunceli. The five provinces with the lowest numbers of graduates from institutes of higher education are Mardin, Van, Muş, Ağrı and Şanlıurfa, all located in either the east or southeast of the country.