Libya cuts illiteracy rate to 11.9 percent: census http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-09-14T094232Z_01_L14736838_RTRUKOC_0_US-LIBYA-POPULATION.xml&archived=False
Thu Sep 14, 2006
TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libya has cut its illiteracy rate to 11.9 percent from 19 percent a decade ago, a rare government census shows.
But illiteracy was still higher among women, with 16.89 percent of them unable to read and write compared with 6.96 percent for men, according to the census.
Libya's population grew by 1.8 percent per year to 5.3 million in 2006 from 1995, compared with an average rate of 1.5 percent in developing countries, details of the census show.
During the 1984-95 period, Libya's population rose 2.8 percent per year.
Details of Libya's 1995 census were not disclosed to the public. Government officials were not immediately available to comment on the new data.
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