Both within and beyond the OECD region, governments and other stakeholders are increasingly interested
in the assessments of the skills of their adult populations in order to monitor how well prepared they are for
the challenges of the knowledge based society. The current paper provides an overview of the two
international assessments of adult literacy which have already taken place in the OECD region – the
International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) and the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALL) as well as
of the forthcoming OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC).
The conceptual framework for the assessments is described with a focus on the links between the different
assessments. In addition, the paper provides a survey of the outputs of IALS and ALL including a review
of the major themes addressed in the literature which has used data from these surveys as well as a brief
discussion of their policy impact.
