Whatever the accurate statistics are after taking libraries and so on into account, I doubt if the results for most Western countries are very different. I've been pondering this a fair bit in the UK as a result of the University fees changes, when many students have taken to the streets concerned that they will now be priced out of education. Now the way the economy is set up, its damned hard to get a good job without a University qualification so I don't blame them at all for the protests, but I'm sure all that the majority want is a job, and getting (what passes for) education is just something the system forces on them to get the job. If that's the situation, those sorts of statistics would not be surprising. But don't be misled: the relationship between literacy and education is far more complex than such simple statistics would reveal.   For example, here is a quotation from a biography of Tom Paine on the reception given to 'Common Sense':
... in the year 1776 alone over four hundred such pamplets were published... The first edition was sold out within two weeks ...[An enlarged edition was produced] "Several hundreds," Paine added, "are already bespoke, one thousand for Virginia"..
If that number of pamphlets are being sold at that rate, the level of literacy must be quite high. Conversely, go to the library of most stately homes and it is obvious from the orderliness and condition of the volumes that the majority of the books were never there to be read.


Finally to explain my remark about 'what passes for education', (and it is not the usual Daily Mail rant!). The root of the word 'education' hangs on in the relatively uncommon word 'educe', which is one of the induce/deduce/educe family of words. 'Educe' is the drawing out of abilities, skills, properties and so forth that were already there. Induction is the reverse, forcing in behaviours and properties that some outsider desires. This why so many firms have 'induction manuals' and the like for new joiners. So we don't really have an education system in the UK (or the US): we have an induction system. It is not surprising that when, as Alex Glasgow put it "They've filled him full of kings and things designed to let him grow up/As a proper man" that the reluctant recipients are not very inclined to continue it when the pressure stops.