Hwang said the posts citing an old study is a "serious error". Shin Ji-young, a linguistics professor at Korea University, separately told AFP: "What the study showed was that South Korean adults at the time scored particularly low in regards to document literacy, which applies to finding and using information written on official documents, graphs or charts."īut on the study's other indicators - comprehending prose and numerical data - South Koreans scored on par with other OECD countries, she added. "One can assess degrees of literacy through these different categories, but defining the lack of literacy as 'effective illiteracy' is inaccurate," she added. Hwang explained the term was also used in linguistics, but that it was "different from 'effective illiteracy'" in that "functional literacy, alongside cultural and critical literacy, is one of several forms used to define literacy." Some international organisations, such as UNESCO, use the term "functional literacy," defining it as a person's capacity to "use reading, writing and calculation for his or her own and the community’s development." "The term 'effective illiteracy' mentioned in the claim is not a concept used academically, as it holds a subjective and normative connotation," Hwang said. Tasks from level 3 onwards involve denser texts that require a higher ability for inferences, she added. Tasks used to test for level 1 and 2 proficiency tests include vocabulary, meaning of sentences and simple inferences, Hwang explained. Hwang Hye-jin, a professor of Korean-language education at Konkuk University, told AFP that individuals who scored in the level 1 or 2 range are "capable of understanding what they read". These figures roughly add up to 75 percent.īut this finding does not mean seven in ten South Koreans cannot comprehend what they read, according to experts. It found that for an indicator called "document literacy", 38 percent of South Korean adults scored in the level 1 range, while 37.8 percent scored in the level 2 range. The study compared adult literacy in South Korea with other OECD countries it was not released by the OECD as the posts claim. The figure cited in the posts - 75 percent - corresponds to the sum of two numbers in a 2001 study by the state-run Korea Educational Development Institute.
Similar claims were shared on Facebook here, here and here and in local news reports here and here. Screenshot of the misleading claim shared on Facebook. "This is a phenomenon where seven in 10 people read something but fail to understand what it means," the report added. The post links to a report from News1, a South Korean news organisation, about South Korean Twitter users apparently misinterpreting a word used by a publishing agency when it apologised for an error in a book signing event.Ĭiting the incident, the report states: "According to an OECD study, up to 75 percent of South Koreans are effectively illiterate, or unable to properly comprehend the meaning of what they read."
South Korea's illiteracy rate at 75%," reads a Facebook post shared on August 21. "Effective illiteracy" is not an academically valid measure, professors told AFP. But the posts misrepresent an indicator used in a 2001 study conducted by the South Korean government - not the OECD - that assessed proficiency in reading official documents. Korean-language posts and news reports have repeatedly shared the misleading claim that an "OECD study" found seven in ten South Koreans are "effectively illiterate" - unable to comprehend the meaning of what they read.
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