Europe Faces Growing Teen Illiteracy

Romania and Bulgaria are at the bottom of the pack as EU countries show increasing proportions of teenagers with poor reading skills A growing proportion of teenagers in the EU have poor literacy skills, a fresh European Commission report has found. In 2006, almost a quarter of 15-year olds (24.1 percent) qualified as "low performers in reading"—an increase of 21.3 percent when compared to data from 2000. Boys (30.4 percent) scored almost twice as badly as girls (17.6 percent). Romania and Bulgaria lie at the bottom of the chart, with over 50 percent of 15-year olds in both countries performing poorly in reading and understanding a written text. The two countries are followed by Greece, with 27.7 percent performing poorly, Italy (26.4 percent) and Spain (25.7 percent). At the top of the chart, in Finland (4.8 percent),... [read full story]