Nearly a million (914 000) South African Grade 4 pupils cannot read for meaning in any of the country’s 11 official languages.
With 81% of the cohort functionally illiterate, the country places last among the 57 countries and regions assessed in the most recent Progress in International Reading Literacy Study.
South Africa also recorded the steepest decline among participants with comparable data, falling from 78% in 2016 to 81% in 2021, erasing a decade of slow gains.
In 2019, President Cyril Ramaphosa set a national goal that every 10-year-old should be able to read for meaning by 2030. Four years out, the trend is moving the other way.
Adult literacy tells a similar story of averages hiding gaps.
South Africa’s adult literacy rate stood at 91,15% in 2024, but the Department of Higher Education and Training reports that almost 4-million adults remained illiterate in 2022, concentrated in North West, Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
Applying UNESCO’s economic model for illiteracy, the World Literacy Foundation estimates the cost to South Africa’s economy at approximately $5,13-billion a year in lost productivity, foregone earnings, and reduced participation in the workforce.
Illiteracy isn’t only a South African problem. It’s a global one – 739-million adults worldwide cannot read, and the World Literacy Foundation works across five continents to close that number, one classroom, one book, and one reader at a time.
“South Africa has the researchers, teachers and programmes that know how to close this gap,” says Andrew Kay, CEO and founder of World Literacy Foundation. “Those voices belong on the world stage.”
Submit to be a speaker
This research will be part of the conversation at the World Literacy Summit, taking place at Oxford University from 31 March to 3 April 2027 where researchers, policymakers, and educators from more than 85 countries will meet under the theme Literacy in a Connected World.
Literacy specialists working on South African reading outcomes, mother-tongue instruction, foundation phase teaching, or adult education are invited to submit a paper or presentation proposal.
Submit Your Paper — deadline 30 August 2026.