a) Adult literacy:

Independent Armenia inherited a sufficiently strong and effective education system. The National policy of Armenia since its existence in the former USSR was directed towards the elimination of illiteracy, commonly available free education, and equal educational opportunities for both sexes. As a result, the considerable progress in education has been reached the primary school enrolment and adult literacy became almost universal. The adult literacy rate in the year 1997 was 99.9%. Only a small proportion of lapsed literacy exists among the very old people and illiteracy among the mentally retarded.

 Unfortunately, the economic crisis hinders access to the high quality education and has resulted in a decline of its quality. The Armenian Ministry of Education and Science indicates that only 77% of pupils who enrolled in the first grade in 1987 graduated from 8-th grade in 1995, and only 59% of the original pool of the first grade pupils finished 10-th grade in 1997. The dropout rate is higher for boys than for girls, and it is more widespread in the rural areas. Not more than 20% of the decline in the graduation rates can be explained by emigration; the majority have simply dropped out. Economic necessity makes many youngsters, especially boys, leave high schools for family income generation.

b) Literacy by gender:

The data from the last census survey of 1989 indicate, that illiteracy rates among female population 16-29 years of age is 0.4% and among male population is 0.2%.