Australia might score high in the world for social progress (10^th) but it has just been ranked 29^th in the adult-literacy stakes.

The Social Progress Index has 12 measures, including health and wellness, social progress, opportunity, obesity, education, and access to basic knowledge, which includes adult literacy.

Australia scored highly on health and wellness (fifth) due our high life expectancy, but ranked 113^th (out of 133 countries) on the obesity scale, with one in four Australians now obese.

In education we rank fifth globally on access to higher education, and equal-first on secondary school enrolment, but we lose out on women’s education because when it comes to secondary school enrolment gender parity (boys vs girls) we are a sad 96^th in the world.

Australia’s advanced education rank was high but when it comes to access to basic knowledge, we really are lagging. Why?

The index is the work of the Social Progress Imperative think tank. The think tank works with the Harvard Business School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, social entrepreneurs and Deliotte Global.