Brazil has 8.4 million illiterates and more than half live in the Northeast, where 10.6% of people cannot read or write a simple note, compared to 2.3% in the Southeast, according to the Pnad Contínua Educação 2025 from IBGE.

Written by Maria Heloisa Barbosa Borges

Published on 19/06/2026 at 20:17

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Although it concentrates more than half of the country’s illiterates, with 4.8 million people, the Northeast saw the rate drop from 11.1% in 2024 to 10.6% in 2025. In Brazil, the rate fell to 4.9%, and the difference between the regions has historical roots, according to the Ayrton Senna Institute.

Brazil has 8.4 million illiterates aged 15 or older, and more than half of them live in the Northeast, where the rate reaches 10.6%, compared to 2.3% in the Southeast. The data is from the Pnad Continuous Education 2025, a survey by the IBGE released on June 19, 2026.

The number equates to a national illiteracy rate of 4.9%, but it hides strong differences between the regions. According to the IBGE, which classifies as illiterate a person who cannot read and write a simple note, the Northeast concentrates 4.8 million of these people, or 10.6% of the local population. However, the rate fell compared to 2024, when it was at 11.1%, and the explanation for the inequality between the regions has historical roots, according to the manager of strategies at the Ayrton Senna Institute, Beatriz Alqueres.

Northeast concentrates more than half of the illiterates

The majority of the problem is concentrated in a single region. According to the Pnad Continuous Education 2025, by IBGE, more than half of Brazil’s illiterates are in the Northeast, which gathers 4.8 million people in this condition, a rate of 10.6%, the highest among the five regions of the country.

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The rate falls in the country and the region

Despite the high numbers, the survey also brings a positive sign. The illiteracy rate is declining: in the country, the proportion of illiterates reached 4.9%, in a reduction trend that IBGE has been monitoring in recent years and which was treated as a milestone in the historical series.

In the Northeast, improvement is also evident. The regional index went from 11.1% in 2024 to 10.6% in 2025, which shows that, even with the gap that still separates the region from others, the Northeast is gradually reducing the number of people who cannot read or write. The downward trend is the other side of a picture that, at first glance, seems only negative.

The ranking among the regions

The distribution of illiterates across the country is quite unequal. After the Northeast, with 10.6%, comes the North, with 5.7%, followed by the Midwest, with 3.3%. These two regions occupy the intermediate range of the table released by IBGE.

At the other extreme are the regions with the lowest rates. The South appears with 2.4% and the Southeast with 2.3%, the lowest rate of all. The difference between the Northeast and the Southeast is more than four times, which helps explain why the debate about illiteracy in Brazil is also a debate about regional inequality.

The historical roots of inequality

For the Ayrton Senna Institute, the difference in the number of illiterates between regions has distant origins in time. According to Beatriz Alqueres, strategy manager at the institution, the lower rates in the Southeast and South are linked to an earlier urbanization process, a greater concentration of public investments, faster economic development, and a quicker expansion of school networks.

In the North and Northeast, the scenario was different. Much of these regions faced higher levels of poverty, a population dispersed in rural areas, long distances to access public services, and later educational expansion, factors that, in this view, help explain the higher illiteracy rates observed today.

The 8.4 million illiterates in Brazil, more than half of them in the Northeast, expose a regional inequality with deep roots, linked to differences in urbanization, public investment, and access to education between regions, according to IBGE and the Ayrton Senna Institute.

At the same time, the drop in rates, with 4.9% in the country and the reduction from 11.1% to 10.6% in the Northeast, indicates a gradual advance in reducing the number of people who cannot read or write a simple note. The challenge now is to continue narrowing the gap between the Northeast and the Southeast, so that the right to read and write reaches all regions equally.

And you, what do you think about these IBGE numbers? In your opinion, what would help the most to reduce illiteracy in the regions with the highest rates? Comment and exchange ideas with other readers about education and inequality in Brazil, with respect for different views.

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Brazil has 8.4 million illiterates and more than half live in the Northeast, where 10.6% of people cannot read or write a simple note, compared to 2.3% in the Southeast, according to the Pnad Contínua Educação 2025 from IBGE.

Northeast concentrates more than half of the illiterates

The rate falls in the country and the region

The ranking among the regions

The historical roots of inequality

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Brazil has 8.4 million illiterates and more than half live in the Northeast, where 10.6% of people cannot read or write a simple note, compared to 2.3% in the Southeast, according to the Pnad Contínua Educação 2025 from IBGE.

Northeast concentrates more than half of the illiterates

The rate falls in the country and the region

The ranking among the regions

The historical roots of inequality

Libya built over 4,000 kilometers of underground pipelines to bring water from the Sahara to coastal cities in a project that the government itself called the Eighth Wonder of the World.

Desert sand, previously discarded for being too smooth for concrete, becomes an ecological brick in the United Arab Emirates, dispensing with Portland cement, curing at room temperature, and attempting to transform dunes useless for construction into raw material for a new arid engineering.

He transformed an abandoned plastic water tank into an underground house in the “hobbit hole” style, using only repurposed pallet wood, without heavy machinery or expensive labor.

Toyota launches “family hybrid van” with 7 or 8 seats, 1.8 hybrid engine, fuel consumption of up to 23.8 km/l, and a price equivalent to about R$ 104,000 without taxes, below the Tiggo 8 Pro Plug-in Hybrid sold in Brazil: meet the Noah Hybrid 2026 in Japan.

China transforms desert-devastated area into the world’s largest artificial forest, planting trees for 60 years, blocking sand that reached Beijing, and creating a “green lung” of 92,000 hectares in a region once considered lost.

With 70 tons of rock removed by hand and an 800-year-old abandoned cave, a former businessman transforms a dark shelter into a modern home carved in the heart of the forest.

Scientists have created a material six times lighter than air, 75 times lighter than styrofoam, and that becomes stronger the more it is compressed: aerographite seems impossible, but it can reinforce structures, batteries, and satellites.

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