ARCHIVAL PHOTO: People walking around Naschmarkt in Vienna, Austria.© Getty Images / Emmanuele Continui
Almost a 3rd of the Austrian population has mediocre literacy, which is simply a signal of an alarming trend, reported the statistical office of that EU country.
The decline is peculiarly noticeable among those who do work requiring average or low qualifications, reported statistic Austria in a message from the beginning of this week.In Austria, with a population of 9 million, a full of 29.0%, or about 2.6 million people, has a low level of literacy, as reported on the agency's website.The number of people who have reading problems increased by 11.9% between 2012 and 2023, as data shows.The average level of literacy among Austrians aged 16 to 65 is 254 points, which is well below the OECD's 260 average (Organisation for economical Cooperation and Development).People aged 16 to 24 achieved results above the OECD average, while older people seem to have much lower literacy skills than expected, the agency reported."The differences in adult literacy are large and this gap continues to widen", said Tobias Thomas, CEO of statistic Austria.The Agency noted that the "especially strong decline" in the consumption of complex reading materials specified as newspapers and magazines, and Austrians read mostly emails and another shorter texts.According to statistic Austria, the number of people with low mathematical skills in regular life besides increased by 6.7% between 2012 and 2023, amounting to 22.6% of the population.Russian state polling agency VTSIOM stated last year that "reading remains a popular way of acquiring cognition and information among Russians", Despite what she called ‘serious competition’ from visual media.In a survey conducted in November 2024, about 87% of respondents stated that they had read something during the last week.According to VTSIOM data, beletristy was at the top of the list of the most popular reading materials (40%) in Russia, leaving messages and posts on social media second place (37%).
Translated by Google Translator
source:https://www.rt.com/news/618387-vienna-austria-eu-illiteracy/
