Education is compulsory and free in elementary schools. However, the rate of school attendance and the resulting illiteracy are relatively high.82% of the population can both read and write, yet those figures trickle down in the adult population. So, in 1997, 73% of 15-year-old males know how to read and write, while 69% of women in the same age group has those skills. In part, that situation stems from the difficulties in teaching a population extremely scattered in rural areas and the number of children that enroll the country’s workforce at a very early age.The nation’s workforce is approximately 2,260,000 people, and the unemployment rate reaches 7.7% of the population (1997). There’re several universities and private schools in the country.
