Panamas black population has highest literacy rate

THE LITERACY rate of Panama’s black population  10 years and older is 97.8%, while for non-African descent it is 94.0% according to figures released by  the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC) of the Comptroller General.

The highest literacy rates were recorded in the provinces of Colón (99%) and Panama (98.3%), and lowest in the Ngäbe Bugle (70.9%).

14.9% of the Panamanian population is of African descent, according to

INEC, with the black population totaling 586,221 of the 3,931,744 people in the country in March 2015.

In the Population and Housing Census 2010 the population claiming African descent was 313, 289, representing 9.2% of the 3,405, 813 Panamanian registered in that year.