Adolescent literacy in Malaysia is deficient, with 162,000 primary or secondary school Malaysian students being rated as illiterate. Malaysian learners' overall English literacy rate is only 27.2 percent.
Adolescent literacy targets students aged 13 to 17, a stormy phase, but literacy research has centred mostly around early literacy skills as well as adult literacies. Comparatively, little attention is given to how to sustain and upskill adolescent literacy.
US literacy advocate, Joan Sedita has said that adolescent literacy should not be just limited to teenagers but should be expanded to students in grades 4 to 12.
