Inaf has been annually canvassed since 2001, through a study carried out by IBOPE Opinião, based on the methodology developed in partnership between the Paulo Montenegro Institute – responsible for IBOPE’s social actions – and Ação Educativa.
The Indicator measures the functional literacy levels of the Brazilian population from 15 to 64 years old, encompassing residents of urban and rural areas of all regions of Brazil, whether they are studying or not. The individual considered functional illiterate is one who, although able to read and write, does not have the reading, writing and calculation skills necessary to enable his/her personal and professional development.
Inaf divides Brazilians into four levels, according to their reading/writing skills (literacy) and mathematics (numeracy): illiteracy, rudimentary literacy, basic literacy and full literacy. These categories features are described in detail at the end of this material. By consolidating and disseminating data collected from 2001 to 2005, Paulo Montenegro Institute provides a set of unpublished data, which aims to contribute to the design, improvement and evaluation of public policies and other actions aimed at education and the development of our society.
Main observations:
The schooling of the Brazilian population has been increasing significantly. IBGE data show, for example, that the proportion of people aged 15-64 with a maximum of four years of study fell from 37.9% to 33.6% from 2002 to 2005, while the proportion of those completing the high school or higher education rose from 35.5% to 40.8% in the same period.
Inaf shows, however, that this increase in schooling still does not guarantee positive results in terms of functional literacy. In fact, the performance of Brazilians from 15 to 64 years old shows a trend of improvement in both literacy and numeracy, but at a lower rate than that of schooling itself. When compiling literacy and numeracy skills according to the level of education of the population, Inaf traces a picture of the skills and competences for each group.
By targeting Brazilians by age group, Inaf shows that, considering people with similar levels of education, young people from 15 to 24 year olds perform better in reading, while adults (aged 40-64) do better in tests that evaluate their mathematic abilities. For example, among young people from 15 to 24 years old who have from 5 to 8 years of schooling, only 21% do not reach the basic literacy level in reading, while in the 40-64 age group, this proportion rises to 34%.