In the vast majority of the world’s countries, information on the literacy proficiency of the adult population is collected through census collections, labour force surveys or through omnibus household surveys. These commonly use simple measures: respondents’ reports of their own or other household members’ capacity to read and write or the capacity of the respondent to accurately read aloud a short sentence.

While there is a justified interest in the use of assessments to collect information regarding literacy proficiency, household surveys using simple measures will continue to be a primary source of data on literacy in many countries for some time. Improvement of the quality of simple measures should, therefore, be a priority. Three main avenues for improvement are identified: greater clarity regarding the concepts being measured, the development of improved simple direct assessments of literacy proficiency and encouragement for the use of a common set of instruments and questions.