page_title: Literacy
section_title: Sri Lanka
hierarchical_section_title: Literacy / By continent / Asia / Sri Lanka
caption_attribution_description: English: My own work. Taken by me in 2004
context_page_description: Literacy is popularly understood as an ability to read, write and use numeracy in at least one method of writing, an understanding reflected by mainstream dictionary and handbook definitions. Starting in the 1980s, however, literacy researchers have maintained that defining literacy as an ability apart from any actual event of reading and writing ignores the complex ways reading and writing always happen in a specific context and in tandem with the values associated with that context. The view that literacy always involves social and cultural elements is reflected in UNESCO's stipulation that literacy is an "ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts." Modern attention to literacy as a "context-dependent assemblage of social practices" reflects the understanding that individuals' reading and writing practices develop and change over the lifespan as their cultural, political, and historical contexts change.
context_section_description: With a literacy rate of 92.5%, Sri Lanka has one of the most literate populations amongst developing nations. Its youth literacy rate stands at 98%, computer literacy rate at 35%, and primary school enrollment rate at over 99%. An education system which dictates 9 years of compulsory schooling for every child is in place. The free education system established in 1945, is a result of the initiative of C. W. W. Kannangara and A. Ratnayake. It is one of the few countries in the world that provide universal free education from primary to tertiary stage.
caption: The University of Peradeniya's Sarachchandra open-air theatre, named in memory of Ediriweera Sarachchandra, Sri Lanka's premier playwright.
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